















































































































COPYRIGHT DKPOSm 





















WHOOPEE! 



• I 


4 









As Socolow’s last candle began to sputter and shed 
sparks, in his excitement, Sonny directed its course 
downward toward his own bare legs. 

“ Kill the Pi—OUCH ! ” 


{Page 148) 








"'^^HOOPEE 

ilUb. STORY OF A CATHOUC SUMMER CAMP 


NEIL 


New York, Cincinnati, Chicago 

BENZIGER BROTHERS 

Publishers of Benziger’s Magazine 

1923 











Copyright, 1923, by Benziger Brothers 



Frintsd in tht United States of America 


JUN -2 ?3 

©C1A704744 
•Vo I 


TO 

THE MOTHER OF FIVE BOYS 

FROM 

ONE OF THEM 



chapter 

CONTENTS 

pAoa 

I 

The Fugitive Panama . . . . 

. 9 

II 

An Executive Appointment . 

. 19 

III 

The Potomac De Luxe 

. 26 

IV 

Swampoodle Inn. 

. 35 

V 

Washington vs. The World 

. 46 

VI 

For the Love of Safety First . 

. 55 

VII 

Shark Tag. 

. 65 

VIII 

The All-star Zoo. 

. 76 

IX 

The Fear of Famine .... 

. 88 

X 

Shivers and Screams .... 

. 99 

XI 

The Chicken That Hiked Home . 

. 112 

XII 

On His Majesty’s Service . 

. 125 

XIII 

The Battle of Breton Bay . 

. 138 

XIV 

Little Pig. 

. 151 

XV 

Terrapin and Seraphim 

. 165 

XVI 

A Rescue En Route .... 

. 176 

XVII 

The Race That Was Never Won . 

. 188 

XVIII 

The Columbus Statue after Dark 

7 

. 196 









WHOOPEE! 

CHAPTER I 

THE FUGITIVE PANAMA 

P OSSIBLY, this story will start promptly, if 
Aloysius Craig is let “step on the accelerator” 
himself. This is “Wish” speaking now: 

“You know how it is when you feel hot and miser¬ 
able all at once at the same time? Well, if you 
don’t, you’re lucky. Don’t experiment, please. 
Anyway, that was the way I felt all over that memo¬ 
rable evening, when the fun all began. 

“I just knew the silver stuff in our good thermom¬ 
eter out on the back porch, was surely going to 
push through the top of the tube and spill out over 
everything, if it got any hotter, and my skin felt 
like winter underwear in July. But my insides! Gee 
Whizzers! There’s where I was miserable and more 
so. 

“No; I had not been filling up. It was a Friday 
night. That’s one real good reason. When you 
and the weather are sticky as new flypaper, you don’t 
want to eat much fish supper. 

“Finally, I decided the porch was not the place 
for my Guardian Angel. We just had to walk some¬ 
where, even if I melted ‘en route,’ and that’s foreign 
language for ‘on the way.’ So I yelled into the 
9 


10 


WHOOPEE! 


house through the screen door: ^Say, Auntie, I’m 
going out and I’ll be back later. You don’t want 
anything done, do you?’ Aunt Polly did not an¬ 
swer, so I guessed she didn’t. ’Cause, if she wanted 
me to run an errand, she’d have heard me all right! 

“We live in one of those red-breasted houses on 
Eye Street, that are di-something-ally across the 
street from St. Aloysius’. I forget the word, but, 
I mean, we are not in a straight line across the street 
from the Priests’ House. So I whistled for my 
dog ‘Hike,’ and he came panting. 

“By the church corner of North Capitol I stopped 
strolling and looked around to see if there was any 
fun. Over at the corner of Myrtle Street I could 
hear some cliildren playing ‘Rover. Red Rover,’ but 
that didn’t mean anything to me. Then I looked 
down, where the lights of the Government Printing 
Office and the lights of the Post Office shone that di¬ 
something-ally way across at each other. ’Way at 
the end of the street was the lighted-up dome of the 
Capitol, looking cool as an ice-cream cone. And 
down looked better than up. 

“Just suppose I had walked up North Capitol 
that night! Whoopee! I don’t even like to say it 
out loud! 

“Before I crossed G Street I almost decided to 
go back and go to bed. For everywhere reminded 
me of the fellows I chum around with mostly. North 
Capitol Street did not look right with ‘Shorty’ 
Howard and Elmo Ranier and ‘Legs’ Lanciano off 
it. 

“Thinking of them only made me worse, ’cause 
those chums were gone to camp down by Leonard- 
town and—hard luck!:—I had to stay in Washing- 


THE FUGITIVE PANAMA 


11 


ton. So now the little pussy cat has her head out 
of the bag and you know w'hy I felt lonely and ‘left 
on base’ and just plain 100 per cent. blue. 

“Of course, if Dad had been alive, or Mother had 
not been in Heaven, things might have been different. 
But camps are not run on free air, and Aunt Polly, 
who looks after me, just could not afford it. So 
you see, I had to be miserable all by myself. Orphans 
have to do that often. 

“Have you ever come into Washington.? That 
may sound like a foolish question, but, honest, there 
are people who haven’t. Why, just up in Gaithers¬ 
burg, I knew an old lady once-t— 

“But, anyway, if you have, then you remember 
next to Union Station is the marble Post Office and 
in front of both is a great square. Why, that 
plaza is big enough for almost fifty diamonds, if 
only we were allowed to play on it. And when 
Shorty and Legs and Elmo and I were real little 
kids, w^e could roller skate till we got hungry and 
never leave that plaza. 

“Maybe, it is because it is so big and country¬ 
like, that it always seems cooler there in the evening, 
with the dim dome of the Congressional Library 
’way off to the left and the bigger dome of the 
Capitol, lit up with hidden lights into white shadows, 
looking just grand. 

“But what I like best of all in that plaza is the 
group of statues before Union Station. First, there 
is an old gentleman in stone, and not much else. The 
Sister, who taught me in the 7th Grade at Gonzaga 
School, told me once-t he represented the Old World, 
And on the other side, there is an Indian. He’s a 
husky guy, and, I suppose, he stands for the New 


12 


WHOOPEE! 


World. Between them—in a kind of a bathrobe, 
only it isn’t, it’s only the way men used to dress— 
between them, is the statue of the gentleman who 
discovered our country on my birthday. That is, 
I was born on October 12th, but not, of course, in 
1492. You see, I could not be, for there will be 
only thirteen candles on my cake next time. That’s 
if I have a cake. Auntie baked apple pie last year. 

‘‘Anyway, I always liked that group. Not be¬ 
cause I took Christopher for a middle name in Con¬ 
firmation either. But, because Mr. Columbus and 
I have that holiday in common, and it is not every¬ 
body who was born on the same day as an Admiral 
w^ho has a statue erected in his honor after his death. 
If you understand what I mean. 

“Again, on hot nights, like this sure was, that 
group was mighty convenient for us chaps, who live 
in ‘Swampoodle.’ For a fellow might—by accident 
you know,—slip over the stone hedge and fall right 
into the basin of water that is below Mr. Columbus’ 
statue. 

“Between you and me, I did only last week with 
Shorty and, unfortunately, neither of us saw there 
was a strange cop nearby. Well, anyway, I got 
aw'ay, but I was hotter than anything, even if I was 
dripping. Our city is no place to race an officer in 
July. 

“Thinking of Shorty and that unexpected 100 
yards’ dash we did in world’s record time down 
Delaware Avenue, ‘Hike’ and I drifted over to see 
Mr. Columbus again. And it was a mighty lucky 
thing for me that I did that. I mean, cut across the 
car tracks and dodge several autos and Fords. 

“Old Mr. Columbus stood out there in the night 


THE FUGITIVE PANAMA 


13 


light and looked almost insultingly cool. And his 
reflection—I guess that’s the big word, only I don’t 
use it often, except when I have to write English 
Composition in school—looked in the basin like he 
was standing on his head in the wavy water. The 
Old World and the New World looked mighty cool 
for a hot July night, too. I guess all that made 
me think hard of Shorty and Elmo having fun down 
at Camp Columbus. 

“I could see Legs—^we call him that for short. 
Really, his nickname is ‘Legs Almighty.’ Father 
Poulton gave him that name once-t on an Altar 
Boys’ Picnic, ’cause those parts of him seemed to 
have grown faster than most of the rest of him. I 
could see Legs taking a jack-knife dive off the spring¬ 
board down at that camp at Leonardtown, and I 
could almost hear him shouting, ‘How much on this 
one, Wish.?’ And I could see his legs trailing after 
him in the air, and then that way he has of shoot¬ 
ing his right hand over his head into the water when 
he is swimming, and his legs stick out like they were 
too long to stay under the surface. 

“I don’t know how long I was day-dreaming there 
in the night. Maybe, an hour. For when I looked 
up, it was quite dark and the big lights were all lit 
in the arches of Union Station. And you could see 
the huge backs of the statues that looked down on 
the passengers in the Waiting Room. They always 
make me think of football players, lined up for 
the kick-off. All those bugs, too, that fly around 
lights all night, or until they get burnt up, were 
beginning to start their flights. 

“People in cool clothes hurried by and most of 
them were headed for the Station and trains that 


14 


WHOOPEE! 


would let them off in the country. I remember I 
looked up at Mr. Columbus and he looked like he 
was balancing himself on the sides of that war canoe 
that’s under him, and he seemed to be making up his 
mind to take a sailor dive into the lower basin. 

“That thought gave me a good idea. I blessed 
myself and put my hands in front of me, thumbs 
locked, already set for a plunge, and then I must 
have thought out loud. For I said: ‘Right after 
you. Admiral C. C. Sail on!’ 

“Then I knew I had thought out loud, for a voice 
came over my shoulder. I half thought it was Mr. 
Columbus himself, only I don’t believe in ghosts. 
And that voice said, ‘Sail on, son. That water does 
look mighty tempting this sweltering night, now 
doesn’t it.^’ 

“A tall gentleman was standing alongside me, and 
he was smiling the waj^ a cop does not. He was a 
real gentleman in a white suit that looked new, and 
he had on a Panama hat that cost money. His hair 
under that hat was gray going into white, and his 
eyes were nice and he might have been a grandfather. 

“He looked there in the electric glow mighty like 
the picture of some one whom I had seen somewhere, 
but you see so many men in Washington who get 
their pictures in the papers and magazines for some¬ 
thing, that we get used to them. So I smiled back 
and said: ‘Mister, you had better not try it, for 
that basin is only twelve inches deep and you would 
surely crack your head wide open. Anyway, there’s 
a cop.’ And I pointed to one under the big light, 
who was looking over our way. 

“The gentleman laughed at that, and replied: 
‘That would be quite a national misfortune, I am 


THE FUGITIVE PANAMA 


16 


sure. I wasn’t thinking of going swimming in 
Columbus’ basin myself, but I rather imagine you 
were. Am I right, son?’ 

‘‘ ‘You get a hundred on that, Mister,’ I told him. 

“There was a kindly ring to his laugh, that made 
me like him more right there and then. Some men 
are that way. Now my Daddy—may he rest in 
peace!—^was that kind of a man. So was this gentle¬ 
man. 

“Then the breeze that was blowing from the 
direction of the Capitol must have remembered it 
was time to do its daily good turn. Anyw^ay, it 
did not die down, and, next second, this gentleman’s 
Panama lifted up as if it wanted to try itself on the 
head of Mr. Columbus. The gentleman made a wild 
grab, the same as ladies do sometimes when the wind 
starts to take their caps, but all he grabbed was his 
white hair. That Panama must have changed its 
mind in mid-air, for it went into a nose dive and 
then it zigzagged down and landed in the lower basin. 
Next it circled and drifted beyond my reach, and 
I’m quick for my age. 

“I must have reached too eagerly, for before I 
knew it, I had glided over that stone hedge. I was 
wet and doing a ‘dead man’s float.’ ‘Hike,’ too, was 
splashing alongside me. 

“But, a lucky thing! I grabbed the rim of that 
Panama before my mutt could, and turned over till 
I could see an evening star over Mr. Columbus’ right 
ear and kicked back to the edge of the basin. 

“There I sat up in the water. Whoopee! Didn’t 
that basin water feel good and damp! And I said: 
‘Mister, here’s your hat, and if it is all the same to 
you, you tell another breeze to sail it on again.’ 


16 


WHOOPEE! 


“Well, he laughed at that and said: ^Thanks, 
son, you better not go after it again till you’re 
rested.’ 

“‘Did you say, “rested” or “arrested”.?^’ 

“He shook his head, and then he sat on the stone 
curbing of the basin, one hand holding one knee 
and the Panama, which was only wet around the rim. 
I sat where I was, for I knew if a cop came around, 
this gentleman would do all the explaining. And 
if I had to run, it was dead easy to ‘take it on high’ 
from where I was in the water. 

“Then we got talking, and before I was really 
cooled off, this gentleman knew everything: why I 
was blue, and why Aunt Polly could not possibly 
send me to camp with Shorty and Legs, and the rest. 
He was calling me ‘Wish’ instead of ‘son,’ and it 
seemed just as if I had known him for years and 
months and forever. He certainly was a nice gentle¬ 
man. 

“He wanted to know where I lived, and when I 
said: ‘I live in “Swampoodle,” but we used to live in 
“Froggy Bottom,” ’ he inquired where ‘The Swamp’ 
was! 

“Now I thought everybody in Washington knew 
that part of our city around St. Aloysius’ Church 
and Gonzaga College, but it was funny, this gentle¬ 
man did not know that simple thing. 

“Then I asked: ‘I bet, sir, you don’t know where 
“Froggy Bottom” is either And he had to con¬ 
fess that he did not. 

“So I told him it was a part of the city out 
toward Georgetown and beyond the White House. 

“I said foolingly, for I knew he did: ‘You know 
where the White House is, though?’ 


THE FUGITIVE PANAMA 


17 


“He nodded seriously and said with a smile: ‘Yes; 
I am accused of that knowledge. But, I wonder, 
Wish, do you know who lives there?’ 

“ ‘Sure; twins, sir: the Chief Executive and the 
President.’ 

“Then the gentleman said he thought I must be 
catching cold, even though it was a warm July 
evening, and I had better drip out of the basin. 

“I thought he had spied a cop, so I got up and 
stepped ashore. It was cool, feeling the water run¬ 
ning down my legs and slushing about my canvas 
shoes. But it was a dark night, and right then I 
remembered I had to get up in the morning to serve 
Father Poulton’s Mass. 

“This gentleman must have had the same thought, 
for he held out his hand, saying: 

“ ‘This has been a most enjoyable evening and 
we’re going to meet again. Good-by now, and I 
hope you’ll find some way to get to camp with 
Shorty and, er-r, isn’t it “Legs”? You’ve given me 
a bully idea. Many a night I’ve camped out when 
I was your height, and I would like very much to 
go to camp myself, but Congress—but business, 
keeps me here all summer. So when you can’t do 
a good thing yourself, Wish, the next best thing is 
to do it through another. Now you sleep over that, 
son.’ 

“That’s all the gentleman said. Then he stooped 
down to pet ‘Hike,’ who had been having a beauty 
sleep. And he put on his Panama, which was dry 
almost. And he walked off, in the direction of Dela¬ 
ware Avenue. 

“I noticed for the first time, that several big 
men, with black walrus mustaches, whom I had not 


18 


WHOOPEE! 


seen at all, came out of the dark from nowhere and 
walked after that gentleman at the same speed he 
made. 

“Cutting through the Post Office, I got the light 
that I had never asked the gentleman his name, but 
my khaki clothes began to feel cold, so I headed up 
North Capitol in a hurry. 

“Gee Whizzers! The summer time is no time to 
catch a cold, for one of those kind sticks to you like 
your own skin; sometimes longer, if you have to 
slide home where we altar boys play ball at Gon- 
zaga.” 


CHAPTER II 


AN EXECUTIVE APPOINTMENT 

A bout ten o’clock next morning the phone rang 
and Aunt Pollj cried from the basement: 

“You, Wish. O Wish, answer that. AloySIUS.” 
“Yes; Auntie.” 

Wish Craig flung himself downstairs and picking 
up the receiver instantly recognized the voice of 
Father Poulton. It spoke a brief command: 

“Is that you, Wish.^ Come right over, I’m in 
my office.” 

Wish kept muttering as he cut diagonally across 
Eye Street toward St. Aloysius’ Rectory, “Gee 
Whizzers! the Rector knows well enough I did not 
^slide into third’ that time on purpose.” 

For this telephone summons brought back forc¬ 
ibly to Wish’s mind a mishap of the morning.. Hav¬ 
ing overslept, he had to hustle to make 7 o’clock Mass 
in the church. The tardy altar boy dove into 
the nearest cassock, which happened to be Legs 
Lanciano’s. Then at the end of the Epistle, when 
Wish had answered “Deo Gratias,” came swift disas¬ 
ter. For carrying the heavy Missal up the steps to 
the Gospel side. Wish had tripped in the long cas¬ 
sock, and Book and boy went crashing into the altar. 

Among other unrubrical acts, the Rector had to 
hastily restore to its upright position a candle that 
19 


20 


WHOOPEE! 


started to bum on the immaculate altar cloth, while 
Wish, blushing the color of his cassock, forgot 
utterly the proper responses till the coming of the 
^‘Orate Fratres.” 

When Wish shyly entered the Rector’s Office, he 
learnt Father Poulton had forgotten the mishap- 
penings of the morning Mass. For the priest was 
smiling as he said: 

‘‘Did you thank Our Lord when He came to you in 
Holy Communion this morning?” 

“Thank Him! Sure, Father. What for? I 
always thank Him every morning.” 

“That’s right. Wish. It pays 100 per cent.” 

Father Poulton was addressing and blotting an 
envelope as he spoke. 

“Do you think you could deliver this message for 
me—without stumbling?” 

“Gee Whizzers! Father,” Wish began to explain, 
“that wasn’t my ‘casket’ I had on this morning.” 
Then he remembered the present question. 

“Sure, Father. Is it far?” 

“No; you’ll be back in plenty of time for your 
lunch. I want you to deliver it at 1600 Pennsyl¬ 
vania Avenue. You know where that is, of course?” 

“No; Father. But I could find it. I got eyes 
and a tongue.” 

“Born and raised in Washington!” exclaimed the 
Rector, “and doesn’t know that address! What 
kind of an American are you. Wish?” 

“Oh, don’t you worry. Father. I am a Roosevelt 
American, I am. But, Father Rector, what’s that 
got to do with this address, anyway?” 

Father Poulton reached into a side drawer of his 
desk and extracted two “tokens.” 


AN EXECUTIVE APPOINTMENT 


21 


^‘Here’s carfare. You go to that address on The 
Avenue and ask for Mr. Nelson Stirling. It’s aU 
on the envelope. 

‘‘By the way, is your Aunt Polly at home now.'^’* 

Wish nodded. 

“I’ll have to see her this morning.” 

Father Rector rose, and as Wish Craig started 
for the door, the priest suggested: 

“Now, if I were in your canvas shoes, I’d drop into 
the Domestic Chapel on my way out and thank Our 
dear Lord again. Never mind for what particular 
kindness. You’ll learn soon enough.” 

“Sure, Father, that won’t hurt me.” Wish 
grinned. 

The boy walked over to Union Station to get his 
car, and soon he was moving up broad Pennsylvania 
Avenue. He spent his time watching those chang¬ 
ing show windows that displayed alluringly campers’ 
outfits. 

As the car neared the gray-pillared Treasury 
Building and turned sharply to the right, for The 
Avenue here “slips a cog” to make way for the Execu^ 
tive Grounds, he suddenly remembered his errand, 

“1600, hey. That’s 16th Street,” thought Wish, 
and he decided to push the button, when the car 
passed Lafayette Square. 

The Pennsylvania Avenue car swung west again 
by the front of the Treasury. A vista of green 
depths appeared. The Executive Mansion standing 
out, a thing of white beauty in the midst of much 
foliage. Then the car stopped in front of the State, 
War and Navy Building. 

On the platform was an erect, handsome gentle¬ 
man in olive drab. Four silver stars on each shoul- 


22 


WHOOPEE! 


der proclaimed his high rank. Wish accosted him: 

‘‘Please, General, will you tell me where’s 1600 
Pennsylvania Avenue.^ There doesn’t seem to be 
any numbers on the buildings around here.” 

The Army officer glanced sharply at the boy. 
Then a twinkle came into his eyes as he looked at 
the address on the envelope. 

“I see. Buddy.” The General pointed to the 
White House. “There’s your 1600 Pennsylvania 
Avenue. See the flag flying over the portico.? That 
tells the world the First Gentleman in the 
Land is at home now. But you’ll find your Mr. 
Stirling in the Executive Offices. See, my lad, that 
low, long building there between the White House 
and the State, War and Navy Building.? Your 
party is one of the President’s private stenographers, 
and he’s in the Offices now. I happened to be speak¬ 
ing to Stirling ten minutes ago.” 

Wish thanked the General and headed for the 
Executive Offices. 

“This mystery is deepening,” he muttered as he 
walked by the black iron railing that separates the 
White House Grounds from the street. 

At the Executive Offices, the White House police¬ 
man let him pass when he produced his envelope, and 
directed him to a door on which was a little gold- 
lettered sign, 

“Secretary to the President.” 

Wish’s eyes grew wide. “Gee Whizzers! I 
might bump into the President in there,” he thought; 
“I wonder what I’d say to him!” 

Mr. Nelson Stirling proved to be a big, blond, 
two-hundred-pound man, who greeted Wish warmly. 


AN EXECUTIVE APPOINTMENT 


23 


‘‘So this is lucky Aioysius Craig, is it? Well, 
young man, I’ve done considerable phoning, local 
and long distance, in your behalf this morning. 
You’re a mighty fortunate lad. That’s aU I have to 
say. Come this way.” 

“What do you mean, sir?” demanded Wish, his 
gray eyes full of doubt. 

But Mr. Sterling led him to a door, on which were 
engraved two impressive words. 

As soon as Wish was ushered in, he gasped and 
dropped his cap. For the gentleman, who sat writ¬ 
ing busily at the long table, under the portrait of 
Abraham Lincoln, was the same grandfatherly 
gentleman whose fugitive Panama Wish had retrieved 
from the basin of Columbus Statue last evening! 

Mr. Stirling whispered in the presidential ear, 
and then as he withdrew from the room, motioned 
the astonished boy to approach. 

“Good morning. Wish,” said the President, ex¬ 
tending a hand. 

Wish burst out as he grasped the friendly hand: 

“Gee Whizzers ! Mr. President, I knew I had seen 
your picture somewhere before! But, honest, I 
never recognized you last night. 

“This will always be a lesson to me and I sure 
will know you next time, in the daytime or the night. 
If I had only known, I, I—I wouldn’t have yapped 
so much,” concluded Wish awkwardly. 

“Well, you didn’t, so don’t now. I was really 
pleased to make your acquaintance, and I am going 
to impose on it and ask you to do me a favor.” 

Wish’s gray eyes grew dubious at the very pos¬ 
sibility of doing the President of the United States 
a favor. 


24 


WHOOPEE! 


‘‘Sit down, son,” said the President, pointing to a 
chair at his side. “My time is as limited as The 
Twentieth Century’s, so I’ll be brief. I told you 
last evening it will be quite impossible for me to get 
away from Washington this summer, so I have 
decided to make a sort of an executive appoint¬ 
ment. You know what that is?” 

“I do not, sir.” 

“Well, you know what a substitute is? In a foot¬ 
ball game, say?” 

The lad nodded solemnly. 

“That’s it. I am appointing you to substitute for 
me in the country next month. So you’re to go down 
to that boys’ camp near Leonardtown with Shorty 
and that long-legged chum and—” 

“Mr. President, you don’t mean Camp Columbus! 
Me 1” ungrammatically exclaimed Wish Craig. 
“Whoopee! Who-o-op-ee!!” 

“Yes; that’s the gist of this executive appoint¬ 
ment.” 

A cloud passed over Wish’s freckled features, and 
the boy looked out the window, to where the tall 
shaft of the Monument pierced the sky. Then he 
said: 

“I sure would like to, and, Mr. President, I want 
to thank you awfully for offering to send me to 
Camp Columbus and pay real money and all that, 
but, I don’t think I can take that, what you call 
‘execution appointment.’ ” 

The President looked his interest. 

“You see, my Daddy, when he was alive, and 
Auntie and all of us are lifelong—” 

Wish stopped, at a loss to express himself politely., 

An executive laugh filled the big room and the 


AN EXECUTIVE APPOINTMENT 


25 


President put his hand on the “lifelong” boy’s knee* 
He spoke earnestly: 

“See here, son. You’re a rare opponent. My 
opponents and others have accused me of many 
political sins, but, thank Heavens, this appointment 
is not patronage. So, now, my boy, you take that 
scruple out of your curly head and tie it outside to 
the Washington Monument. Will you.?” 

Wish grinned and nodded his relief. 

The President touched a buzzer by his desk. 

“Father—I forget his name—anyway, the Pastor 
of your church in—‘Swampoodle’—isn’t it?—has 
phoned Mr. Stirling that your Aunt has given her 
full approval. So we’U take you as far as Leonard- 
town on the ‘Mayflower’ this afternoon. 

“See Mr. Stirling now and do what he says. This 
is a Presidential command, given under my tongue 
and seal. What do you suppose any law-abiding 
American boy would do with that?” 

“He’d obey it promptly, sir.” 

The private stenographer came noiselessly into the 
room and the President spoke: 

“Nelson, I wish you’d take this young friend of 
mine down The Avenue and don’t let him go till his 
camp equipment is complete.” 

“Leave that to me, Mr. President.” The big 
young stenographer grinned boyishly. “You’ll be 
satisfied,” 

The President extended his hand again. 

And Wish Craig’s second interview with the 
President of the United States was over. 


CHAPTER III 


THE POTOMAC DE LUXE 

M r, nelson STIRLING would never have been 
appointed a private stenographer to the Pres¬ 
ident, if efficiency had not shone, like the noonday 
sun, among his virtues. So when he personally 
directed a big White House car along F and kindred 
shopping streets. Wish Craig was outfitted for 
camp, neatly, completely, expeditiously. 

A final stop was made at a jeweler’s on The 
Avenue and when the two came forth, a half-dollar¬ 
sized watch, like a silvered excrescence, rode trium¬ 
phantly on Wish’s left wrist. 

“I got to go home to dinner now,” observed Wish, 
as he consulted his newly-acquired timepiece. “Aunt 
Polly will be worried and I’m hungry.” 

So he was driven to Eye Street, his purchases werh 
carried within, and Mr. Stirling left behind this aw¬ 
ful threat. “A car will be back at 4:30, and if you 
are not ready and waiting on the steps, the ‘May¬ 
flower’ will sail without you.” 

“Mr. Stirling, you please let me have your phone 
numbers, in case that White House car is late,” 
demanded Wish earnestly. 

Aunt Polly proved to be more excited and grate¬ 
ful than her nephew, whose morning of excitement 
had ground a keen edge to his appetite, and praises 


THE POTOMAC DE LUXE 


27 


for the President fell from her lips like a benediction 
upon this dinner table. 

Then came a hurried visit to a North Capitol 
Street barber shop, and Wish ran home to begin 
preparations for his departure. 

He retired to his small private den at the top of 
the house. ‘‘Hike” was unceremoniously awakened 
and sent elsewhere to resume his siesta. And here, 
behind locked doors, as a bride dons her trousseau, 
he personally tried on each and every article of the 
morning’s purchase. 

Once he unlocked the door and sought the bath¬ 
room, where he requisitioned the shower to prove to 
his own satisfaction that the color of his new one- 
piece bathing suit was as advertised: fast and true 
blue. 

Another incident disturbed this happy period and 
that was the arrival by special messenger of the 
leather suitcase, that had “A. C. C. Wash., D. C.” 
stenciled on its end. 

Within this new bag now went, besides useful 
articles of camp apparel, two new League baseballs, 
a seasoned catcher’s mitt, and a blue one-piece suit, 
decidedly damp. 

A beloved and lucky, yellowed bat refused pos¬ 
itively to collapse, so it was strapped, like a deck 
load of lumber, to the top of the bulging suitcase. 

Promptly at 4:30 p. m. a shiny car, with the seal 
of the United States on its side door, rolled noise¬ 
lessly up Eye Street and slowed down at the sight of 
a gray clothed boy and his suitcase, camped on the 
curb across from St. Aloysius’ Rectory. 

Wish’s good-bys and promises to write faithfully 
and not get drowned were of the hurried order. 


28 


WHOOPEE! 


Auntie stood on the steps waving one hand. Her 
other hand was busily engaged in restraining ‘‘Hike,” 
who refused to believe this parting from his master 
was only for a time. 

When, a quarter of an hour later, the car arrived 
at the White House driveway, several similar cars 
stood there, but Wish’s passed them and took its 
place under the portico of the White House. 

The chauffeur informed him: 

“You’re to ride to the Navy Yard with the Chief, 
sonny. So stay on board now. He’s due out any 
minute.” 

The chauffeur passed Wish’s suitcase to a blue 
uniformed attendant and as Wish started to protest, 
he said: 

“You’ll find your baggage in your stateroom. 
Don’t you worry. I’d enjoy myself. Here they are 
now.” 

Wish saw the uniformed doorkeeper throw open 
the big door. A black and tan Airedale walked forth 
with Presidential dignity. This, the First Dog in 
the Land promptly discarded at sight of a too 
venturesome sparrow. A little group of distin¬ 
guished people appeared framed for a moment in the 
historical doorway. Then the group dissolved into 
smaller groups and one of them, made up of the 
President and Mr. Stirling, came directly forward. 

The President whistled an Executive order and 
the Airedale bounded ahead of him into the car. 

“Did Nelson—did Mr. Stirling do a good job 
this morning?” asked the President, as he seated him¬ 
self and motioned the standing boy to take his place 
at his left. 


THE POTOMAC DE LUXE 


29 


Wish exclaimed: ‘‘Whoopee! You just ought 
to see, sir, what’s in my new suitcase! I’ve had 
everything on twice-st and they fit comfy.” 

Then as they rolled out of the White House 
Grounds and turned toward the Treasury, Wish 
burst out in admiration: 

“Mr. President, this is a white man’s car, you 
got! I know how to run a Lizzie, but—” And he 
proceeded to explain the difference in the gear be- 
tween the present machine and its humble Detroit 
brother. 

As they swung into Pennsylvania Avenue, and the 
wonderful vista of the massive white-domed Capitol 
a mile away opened before them. Wish suddenly 
reached over and touched the President’s knee. 

“Pardon, Mr. President, see that boy there by the 
curb in front of Poli’s.^ I know him and he owes me 
ten cents now.” 

Wish whistled, long and shrilly. Then he shouted: 

“OTiny. Tiny Quirk. You-o-o-oo!” He waved 
violently. 

A runt of a boy looked up. He recognized Wish. 
Then he recognized the features of the gentleman 
seated beside Wish, and his body straightened into 
attention. His right hand, thumb on nail of little 
finger, went up snappily to the Scout salute and he 
stood a miniature khaki statue till the big car swept 
him out of view. 

Wish confided: 

“Tiny is on the altar with me at St. Aloysius’ and 
when I met him this afternoon at the barber shop—• 
he was getting a hair-cut and he needed it more than 
I did too—I told him I was going down to the camp 


30 


WHOOPEE! 


on the ‘Mayflower’ with you and he said it was not 
right to lie. So I offered to bet him his small change, 
and he came up there to see if he won his bet.” 

On their arrival at the Navy Yard, the big black 
car rolled on to the wharf, where the high white side 
of the President’s yacht and her one buff smokestack 
hid all view of the water. A guard of honor stood 
at rigid attention and a band played—as Wish 
observed in admiration—“almost as loud as Gon- 
zaga College’s.” 

But music and novelty had no charms for Wish’s 
heart just yet. He was worried till Mr. Stirling 
took him in charge. 

They went below and there in the roomy state¬ 
room was the new suitcase, with its yellowed bat 
still “on deck.” 

Wish’s features cleared and he started to look 
around. 

The next two hours caused the “Mayflower” to 
reveal most of her secrets. Wish delved into the 
tropical heat of the boiler rooms, where half-naked 
men worked like demons. He was offered and 
sampled some ante-dinner ice cream in the arctic 
atmosphere of the yacht’s refrigerator plant. At 
the Commander’s express invitation, he walked the 
bridge and watched the green hills of Maryland 
and, over on the Virginia side, old Alexandria slip 
by. 

He saluted stately Mount Vernon, when the eight 
pillars of the house stood out of the great green 
lawn directly abeam. 

And off the mouth of Dogue Creek, he heard for 
the first time the tradition that young George Wash¬ 
ington once threw a silver dollar across the river 


THE POTOMAC DE LUXE 


31 


at this point. As the Potomac here is close to a 
mile wide, Wish’s remark to Mr. Stirling, “Yes; he 
did not,” effectively concluded that anecdote. 

Then, at a hint from Mr. Stirling of the approach 
of dinner, he disappeared from bridge and deck to 
sample the bathing facilities of his stateroom and 
don white creased knickerbockers. 

After the conclusion of “the event of the day,” 
when the President and his guests seated themselves 
in deep and luxurious chairs on the broad after-deck, 
Wish Craig whistled to the friendly Airedale and 
again sought the bridge. Seated, with the dog lying 
at ease at his feet, he let the cool night breeze blow 
in his face. Remembering the accident to the 
President’s Panama, he rose up to sit on his new 
gray cap. 

The Potomac, ever broadening, was flowing in a 
great eastern bend between still, wooded bluffs, and 
navigation lights glowed and winked to starboard 
and to port. 

It was darkening into night, and to Wish, whose 
personal “dining room” had reached capacity, came 
a reflective mood. 

He thought how this time only last night he had 
wandered, a blue and lonely boy, over to Columbus 
Statue. The same stars looked down, but what reels 
of unexpected movies had these twenty-four hours 
unrolled! 

He remembered Father Poulton’s remark, when he 
entered his office: “Did you thank Our dear Lord 
when He came to you in Holy Communion this 
morning?” 

“Thank Him! Sure, Father. I always thank 
Him every morning.” 


32 


WHOOPEE! 


“That’s right, Wish. It pays 100 per 
cent. . . .” 

A ship clock, somewhere below him, struck four 
bells: ten o’clock. 

Then to Wish came the thought that this was 
Saturday evening, and to-morrow would be Sunday! 

There is nothing startling in this sequence, but 
it brought into startling prominence a remark. Wish 
had overheard a Senator among the President’s 
guests make at the dinner table. 

Wish jumped up and sought the private stenog¬ 
rapher to demand: 

“Please, Mr. Stirling, when are they going to put 
me ashore at Leonardtown?” 

“Why, the Chief’s orders are, as usual, to cruise 
slowly down to the Bay. We should be off Point 
Lookout about ten to-morrow. You may take a 
dandy late sleep, young Swampoodle. We’ll anchor 
or cruise in Chesapeake Bay and in the afternoon 
on our way up the river, we’ll put you ashore at 
Leonardtown. How’s that strike you?” 

“It’s all wrong. Where’s the owner of this boat ?” 
And Wish Craig disappeared aft in search of the 
President of the United States. The Airedale 
bounded delightedly before him. 

Wish’s luck was with him, for on the broad after¬ 
deck he saw a lone cigar glowing. 

He approached. 

“Is that you. Wish? Come and sit down. How 
are they treating you?” 

“Fine, Mr. President. 

“But—” The boy hesitated, and then plunged 
into his subject. “But, Mr. President, is it true you 


THE POTOMAC DE LUXE 


33 


have given orders to put me ashore to-morrow eve¬ 
ning? Mr. Stirling says so.” 

“I thought you would enjoy the sail down the 
Potomac and the Bay. We’ll drop you, bag and 
bat and baggage, over the side about four to-morrow 
afternoon,” 

‘‘Mr. President,” began Wish, standing up and 
coming closer. “Mr. President, can’t you Please 
put me ashore before 7:30 to-morrow morning? 
Can’t you, Please?” 

“Why that ungodly hour?” 

“Please, sir, it may be for you and the rest, but 
it is not for me. I—” Wish hesitated. 

“Why, son?” asked the President, putting his 
hand on the boy’s shoulder. 

Wish said in a low voice: 

“Because it’s Sunday and I don’t want to miss 
Mass and Holy Communion. I go daily. And 
we— 

The President looked with grandfatherly eyes at 
the slim erect figure. Then he said—and he meant 
it: 

“My boy, you have convictions and you do not 
hesitate to put them before your pleasure. I like 
the boy who does that IQOO per cent, better than any 
other type of boy in our country. He’s the hope 
of America. 

“Is it 7 :30 you wish to be at that camp ? I’ll see 
that you are landed in time, if I have to send you 
by radio. How’s that?” 

“Thank you, sir,” said Wish—and he meant it. 

“Now, is there anything Nelson Stirling forgot 
to equip you with ? Out with it!” 


34 


WHOOPEE! 


“Gee Whizzers! Not a thing, and I got $1.35 my 
Aunt Polly gave me. But—” 

“Out with it, if it’s half my republic,—or aU my 
political opponents!” 

“Well, you have a box of cigars there on the 
stand. May I have one, please.^” 

“What! You’re beginning young on black cigars. 
I don’t quite approve—” 

“Oh, no, sir. I don’t want one of those things 
for personal use. But I thought, if I had a real 
good ten cent one, like you smoke, it might come in 
handy some time in camp. 

“You know, I might be hungry some day between 
meals and Cookie—” 

The President, even in the dusk of the deck, saw 
the grin that accompanied this unfinished observa¬ 
tion. He reached over to the little stand and select¬ 
ing a banded cigar, handed it to Wish. 

“With my compliments—future successor.” 

Wish with difficulty smothered a yawn. 

“You better turn in now, for you’ll be called 
early.” 

“I’ll say that’s sensible. Good night and thank 
you for everything, sir.” 

As the slim boy started to withdraw, he turned 
back. Then he came close up to the President and 
whispered in his ear: 

“Mr. President, I am going to let you in on a 
secret. I’m not a lifelong—. I’m a—. You have 
my vote.” 


CHAPTER IV 




SWAMPOODLE INN 

N ext morning, the great white “Mayflower,’’ 
like a swan at rest, lay at anchor on the broad 
quietness of the Potomac, and “the owner of this 
boat” and all, except one, of his week-end guests 
slept the sleep of the tired. 

A speedy launch put off from the yacht’s side and 
headed, with roaring motors, up Breton Bay. 

She carried one passenger: a gray-eyed boy, very 
wide awake. Between the gray-knickered legs of 
this passenger was wedged a brand-new leather suit¬ 
case, with a yellowed bat strapped to it. And on 
the side of the suitcase, facing the blue heavens, was 
the black stenciled inscription, “A. C. C., Wash., 
D. C.” 

The wooded shores of old St. Mary’s County, be¬ 
tween Newtown and Medley’s Neck, narrowed, and 
the launch was passing a spit of land that stuck out 
into the waters like an abandoned dyke. On this 
was a desolate-looking wharf with its barred, un¬ 
painted freight shed. Below, a heap of oyster shells 
glistened snowy in the morning sunlight. 

Then Breton Bay opened wide again and seemed 
to end in a round, high plateau, heavily treed above 
the yellow bar of sand at the water line. 

Ahead, began to stand out a black painted light. 
35 


30 


WHOOPEE! 


To the left of this aid to navigation, as the launch 
dashed in, opened blue water. As the nearer point 
of land receded. Wish Craig made out white pillared 
residences on the wooded cliff, half hidden in trees, 
and then appeared a Potomac River boat lying at 
the wharf, the tall stack of an ice plant, and a 
cluster of houses, red and white. 

“That must be Leonardtown, Maryland,” thought 
Wish, “but what I want to know is, where’s Camp 
Columbus 

As if in answer to his question, a sailor came back 
to the cockpit, and above the constant roar of the 
engines, shouted in the boy’s ear: 

“Pardon, sir. Do you wish to be put ashore at 
Leonardtown wharf, or, there’s your camp dock dead 
ahead, sir?” 

Wish stood up and looked ahead. 

He saw an inviting green-clad cliff*, with tall trees 
against the sky-line. The slim needle of a flagstaff 
showed and the red fold of a drooping flag. Then 
his eyes dropped down the cliff and he could make out 
a diving stand, and its red float, the white side of a 
moored launch, a pier, and alongside, an inclined 
chute. Back of these, along the shore line, a row 
of queer, gray and green, beetle-looking things. 

“What’s the use of my lugging this suitcase back 
from Leonardtown out to the camp? You let me 
off, please, at the dock ahead.” 

The sailor saluted. 

It was only as the launch drew in closer to the 
inviting green cliff that Wish made out those queer 
gray and green things were several dozen canoes, 
hulls up. 

The roaring suddenly ceased and they taxied in 


SWAMPOODLE INN 


37 


to the pier. The moored launch was breasted and 
Wish read her name on the stem, “Santa Maria of 
Leonardtown, Md.” 

Wish was assisted ashore and his suitcase was 
passed up to him. 

“I guess I can find my way from here, all right. 
Thanks.” 

He waited till the launch backed out speedily and 
with a sudden feeling of loneliness, he watched it 
turn in a wide circle and race in an airplane roar 
down Breton Bay toward the dim, distant, Virginia 
shore. 

Then only, he picked up his heavy suitcase and 
staggered with it toward the shore end of the pier. 
He cast approving eyes on the water-chute and 
the up-turned canoes. Tlien he grinned expect¬ 
antly. 

The cliff looked high and formidable, but as Wish 
walked toward it, a stairway appeared, leading up, 
up endlessly. 

Cheerful birds welcomed him, but there was no 
sign of boy life. As he climbed, he complained: 

“Gee Whizzers! I’m sure glad I didn’t bring a 
trunk. This is worse than the Washington Monu¬ 
ment when the elevator is out of order. 

“I guess I know now why it said ‘Boys’ Paradise’ 
on that postal Shorty mailed me. It’s more than 
that high up, almost.” 

But, at length, a perspiring Wish stood on the sky¬ 
line. Back below him through the trees showed blue 
spaces of the Bay and the spreading wake of the 
launch. But he was much more interested in the 
summer camp that lay before him. 

The exposed piping of a row of showers stood one 


38 


WHOOPEE! 


side, and, beyond, was an open pavilion, with its 
radio antennae aloft. Rows of square bungalows, 
their board half-sides painted white and blue and 
their upper walls airy screening, led to the left. 

A shaggy, black-coated collie, appeared framed 
in the pavilion entrance, and seeing the boy with 
the suitcase, barked in a wheezy old tone. 

From the nearest bungalow came voices, strangely 
familiar. 

As Wish stood undetermined which way to go, 
from somewhere a gong clanged harshly. 

He heard an incredulous shout: 

“Craig! O you Wish! Where did you eome 
from? Hey, Shorty, look who’s here!” And 
around the nearby bungalow came Elmo Ranier, 
burnt to a brick red, and at his heels a short, 
stockily-built boy, tanned as a hide. 

Wish’s next few minutes were busily occupied in 
a vain and violent attempt to keep his chums from 
ruining his new gray suit. 

Then Elmo remembered the gong’s summons, for 
he said: 

“There’s the bell for Mass. Hurry, or we’ll be 
late. Come on. Shorty, throw the gentleman’s 
stuff in our bungalow till later. And if there’s any 
candy I get the bigger half.” 

Then he yelled to the black-coated collie: 

“Shut up, Shep. This is Sunday morning.” 

Wish was led down the main street of the camp, 
by twin rows of blue and white bungalows. He had 
a glimpse of Shorty Howard disappearing into the 
first one, which had the friendly name over the screen 
door, “SwAMPOODLE Inn.” 

“This is ‘Columbus Avenue’ you are on now. Wish, 


SWAMPOODLE INN 


39 


and ‘Christopher Avenue’ is the next street of bun¬ 
galows. That building ahead, where those fellows 
are going in, is, downstairs. Mess Hall, and, up¬ 
stairs, our Chapel. 

“Come on. Don’t wait for Shorty, If he’s late, 
it’s his fault.” 

Wish read the names over the various bungalow 
doors, “Walk Inn,” “Keep out Inn,” “Hop Inn,” 
“Kum Bag Inn,” “Pekin” —he did not get this for 
a moment— “Stagger Inn,” “Sail Inn,” “Tumble 
Inn,” “Look Inn,” “Trail Inn,” “All Inn,” 
“Welcome Inn.” 

All these titles sounded inviting, and Wish paid 
not a bit of attention to the stream of words issuing 
from Elmo Ranier. 

Before the building that ended “Columbus 
Avenue,” in a wooden sheltering niche was a grace¬ 
ful statue of God’s Mother, with the appropriate in¬ 
vocation below it, “Our Lady of Camp Columbus, 
pray for us.” 

As Wish genuflected in the chapel aisle and fol¬ 
lowed Elmo into a pew in the midst of many strange, 
sunburnt, sunbronzed boys, he saw the priest and 
his two servers—one of them Legs Lanciano—com¬ 
ing out to the altar. 

The President of the United States had seen to it 
that Wish Craig arrived in time for Sunday Mass. 

When the camp came down from the chapel. 
Shorty pointed out a healthy-looking Religious, 
dressed in a black habit, with a little black slit in 
the middle of his Roman collar. 

“See him.^ That’s Brother Christopher. He’s 
Camp Director here. But you just wait when he 
hasn’t got those sad clothes on and see him play base- 


40 


WHOOPEE! 


ball! And in the water! Whoopee! He can teach 
fishes some strokes! Come over and meet him.” 

But the Camp Director had seen the new boy— 
the pressed gray suit in the midst of camp garb be¬ 
trayed the recent arrival from the haunts of civiliza¬ 
tion—and he beckoned Wish to come over, smiling 
pleasantly. 

“So this must be the ‘friend of Caesar,’ isn’t he?” 

The Director gave Wish a handshake that was 
mostly squeeze. 

“Ouch! What ido you mean, ‘friend of Caesar,’ 
sir? My name’s—” 

“I know all about your coming. But step into my 
bungalow and we’ll try to locate you in this boy 
zoo before breakfast.” 

Wish followed, wondering what position this 
athletic-looking Director played on the diamond. 

They entered the first bungalow, named “Office 
Inn,” and Wish Craig was put through the usual 
formalities. 

“Now let me see, in what ‘Inn’ is there a vacancy?” 

The Director put on his nose glasses and taking a 
typewritten list from his file frowned at it. 

“Here we are! There’s one cot unoccupied in 
‘Capitol Inn’ and—” 

“Oh, Brother Christopher, don’t stick him there. 
Just a minute.” Wish and the Director looked 
around and located the hidden voice the other side 
of the screen wall of the bungalow. 

“Well, what’s the trouble now?” asked the Direc¬ 
tor. 

Wish had placed the previous speaker and was 
waving to him. 


SWAMPOODLE INN 


41 


“Please, Brother, I heard what you just said, but 
can’t Wish—can’t Craig bunk with us in ‘Swam- 
POODL.E Inn?’ There’s one place free there, since 
Babe Cronk moved over to ‘Seldom Inn,’ with Red 
Cooper and Fats Doran and that crowd. Can’t 
Wish have his cot? He knows Ranier and Howard 
and he knows me and—” 

“Is that true?” questioned the Director. “Do 
you know this arch-criminal? What’s his name?” 

“It’s Tony Lanciano, but everybody on North 
Capitol Street calls him ‘Legs,’ ” replied Wish with a 
grin. 

“And we need another man in our bungalow, if 
we are ever going to have a chance of winning the 
Camp Cup,” continued Legs earnestly from the 
other side of the screen. “Red got Babe to bunk 
there in his ‘Inn,’ just because he can run like a little 
streak and they hadn’t any one as good as he. So 
can’t Craig have that cot in our bungalow. Brother 
Christopher, please.” 

The Director saw the unspoken plea in the gray 
eyes of the new boy. 

“Oh, I suppose so, Lanciano,” capitulated the 
Director, knowing from long experience that wher¬ 
ever be placed the newcomer, he would be accused of 
partiality by other bungalows, out to annex newly- 
arrived athletic ability. “There’ll be no peace in 
camp, if I don’t. It’s too late now, but after break¬ 
fast report to your Counselor, and tell him, with my 
compliments, more trouble has come upon unfortu¬ 
nate ‘SwAMPOODLE Inn.’ ” 

“By the way, Craig, this makes four Washing¬ 
tonians and three Baltimoreans in your ‘Inn.’ So 


42 


WHOOPEE! 


don’t start a discussion on the relative merits of 
jour cities, unless another Baltimore boj gets into 
it.” 

Wish grinned and knew he was going to like this 
big, bronzed Director, who dressed like a Xaverian 
Brother, but looked like a middle-weight champion. 

“It’s only about even with Wish,” said Shorty 
Howard, who had been standing alongside Lanciano. 
“You forgot. Brother, that little nuisance. Sonny, is 
equal to two Baltimoreans, at least.” 

The Director reached for an iron bar and point¬ 
ing to a gong, hanging before “Office Inn,” said to 
Wish: 

“Give that a few love taps with this, and see what 
happens.” 

Instantly, the length and breadth of “Columbus 
Avenue” and side streets, barelegged boys, who had 
already shed chapel clothes for camp attire, burst 
out of bungalows and headed in a wild “Where’s-the- 
hre!” rush toward the Mess Hall. 

Elmo Ranier and Legs Lanciano showed Wish 
his place between them in the pennant-hung dining 
hall. And while the boys waited for Grace to be 
said, he had a chance to look over his bungalow 
mates. 

At the head of the table, standing modestly, was a 
boyish-looking Religious, dressed as Brother Chris¬ 
topher, and Legs whispered: 

“There’s our Counselor, Brother Nicholas, He’s 
all right; you wait and see.” 

Directly across the table stood a very small boy 
with chubby browned limbs, a stubby nose, still peel¬ 
ing, and the bluest of sky-blue eyes. These same 
blue circles were taking in Wish. As Wish caught 


SWAMPOODLE INN 


43 


the small boy’s eye, he winked and it was returned 
with immediate interest. Wish guessed correctly 
this was Sonny. 

Next the Brownie stood two boys about Wish’s 
age, who looked exactly alike. They were plump 
and smiling and burnt to a warm brown. Wish 
noticed these twins also were silently sizing him up. 

Then fell a reverent silence, and the priest who 
had said Mass, was saying Grace. 

A Sign of the Cross was made on many breasts, 
and then came the sound of chairs and china, and 
the sudden breaking out of talk at every table. 

“Say,” demanded the blue-eyed boy as soon as he 
was seated, ^‘say, new boy, where did that speed 
boat come from, anyway, that you got off of?” 

“She belongs to the ‘Mayflower.’ ” 

“But where did she pick you up?” 

“I came down the Potomac on the ‘Mayflower’ 
last night.” 

“Did the President know you were on board?” 
came the persistent question. 

The bungalow table was listening now. 

“He invited me,” explained Wish with a show of 
bashfulness. 

Sonny’s blue eyes opened to their widest and he 
said piously: 

“New boy, you better go to Confession.” 

Wish would have replied he had yesterday, but, 
instead, he reached for the last piece of bread, and 
he was promptly initiated into a camp custom. 

It was Legs who was yelling: 

“Hey, Wish. No waiter here. This is not the 
New Willard. The fellow who takes the last hunk 
of anything, even soup, has to get more. You go 


44 


WHOOPEE! 


in there, where you see that line of boys going with 
dishes, and get more bread.” 

“I’ll show the greenie,” volunteered Shorty, 
pouring out the last “hunk” of milk and picking up 
the empty pitcher. 

Wish with the bread dish obediently followed 
him. 

In the kitchen Howard whispered: 

“The Director told me about your coming to 
camp, but you better not let the fellows know, or 
they’ll razz you.” 

Wish went through the motions of the Lock and 
Key over his lips and a gray eye closed slowly. 
Then opened. 

When they poured out of the Mess Hall, Wish 
and Shorty and Legs and the twins were all talking 
together, and Sonny was trying hard to be heard. 

At “SwAMPOODLE Inn” Wish was shown his 
cot, and he hastened to exchange his gray suit for 
cool khaki shorts and Howard’s white jersey with 
its blue camp monogram. 

In the meanwhile the others in the bungalow busied 
themselves in cot making and cleaning up generally, 
while one of the twins swept the floor bare of dust. 

He explained as he swept under Wish’s cot: 

“It’s Inspection when the gong goes off, and you 
have to give the place a sweeping it will never forget 
or you might lose the Cup. 

“The Director’s got a telescope eye and you have 
to have the floor so that you could sleep on it all 
night in white clothes, before he will give you a 
perfect mark. 

“Why, one day, two weeks ago, when it was 
Tubby’s turn, he swept only the parts under the 


SWAMPOODLE INN 


45 


cots that showed from the door. But the Director 
walked right in and inspected from the other way.” 

“Say, Ted, forget that. Will you ever?” asked 
his twin. 

“He may, but I won’t,” said Sonny, smoothing off 
the surface of his blanket, “ ’cause the Director gave 
us four instead of ten, and we lost the Cup that week 
to ‘Seldom Inn’ by two points.” 

The gong clanged and Wish saw the Camp Di¬ 
rector striding toward “Swampoodle Inn” to 
begin his rounds. He felt some of the excitement 
that held the others, standing at rigid attention, 
each at the foot of his orderly cot. 

In came Brother Christopher, not smiling, but 
wearing his “Inspection face,” and his critical eye 
took in all corners and nooks and rafters in a com¬ 
prehensive glance. 

Lanciano’s cot was by the door, and Wish saw him 
looking over the Director’s shoulder as he wrote his 
verdict on the Day Sheet. 

Legs made with silent lips the numeral, “Ten” and 
the faces of all the boys in “Swampoodle Inn” re¬ 
laxed. 

Inspection was over and “Swampoodle Inn” 
had started a new week aright. 


CHAPTER V 


WAISHINGTON VS. THE WORLD 

I N THE open Pavilion at the foot of “Columbus 
Avenue” is the Bulletin Board: that directory 
of the camp day’s ever changing activities. 

Brother Eusebius, on his way to open the Canteen 
for the Clan of the Perpetually Hungry, stopped 
before the Bulletin Board to thumb-tack this an¬ 
nouncement : 


9 A. M. 

WASHINGTON VS. THE WORLD. 


Howard 

ss 

Larditch 

If 

Cronk 

2b 

Doran 

3b 

Ranier 

3b 

Thompson 


Craig 

c 

(Tubby) 

p (Capt.) 

Smith, T. 

If 

McNamara 

ss 

Ball 

cf 

Thompson, 


Garver 

lb 

(Teddy) 

c 

Healy 

rf 

Socolow 

cf 

(Capt.) Lanciano 

P 

Collins 

lb 


Cooper 

2b 



McGinn, B. 

rf 


Umpire, Bro. Nicholas. 

Official Scorers, Messrs. Dougherty & Gibson. 

(Private and Confidential.) 

Any Nine not on the field on time forfeits the game 
IPSO FACTO. 

Bro. Christopher, C. F. X. 

46 


WASHINGTON VS. THE WORLD 


47 


It was Monday and camp uniforms of white shorts 
and white sleeveless jerseys with the blue monogram, 
predominated over summer khaki in the bronzed 
crowd of barelegged boys who struggled to read the 
notice. 

Their frank comments on the relative merits of 
the representatives of the Nation’s Capital and all 
other cities were varied, pointed, personal, and 
alarmingly accurate. 

But soon they lit on the new name. 

Who’s Craig Where did ‘‘The Washingtons” 
get that ringer.?” asked a Richmond boy. “I hope 
for their sake he can catch better than Doc did 
Saturday. He could not catch pneumonia. Who’s 
the new backstop ?” 

Sonny Socolow, wiggling his way to the board 
under the elbows of many, volunteered the necessary 
information. 

“He’s that new boy in ‘Swampoodue Inn’ who 
came off a boat yesterday. They call him Wish. 
Lanciano says he’s his regular catcher and better 
than Doc ever will be.” 

“Well, they will need to need him, with you in 
center. Sonny,” exclaimed Bemie Ball, the rival 
center fielder and personal friend of the discarded 
Dougherty. 

“Is that a fact,” sneered Socolow. 

“It is, ‘ipso facto,’ ” countered Bernie. 

Sonny, overawed by the new words, made no an¬ 
swer, but butted his way out. 

Over in “Swampoodle Inn” four “Washing¬ 
ton” players were engaged in consultation. Inspec¬ 
tion was over successfully and they were awaiting 
the sound of the gong. 


48 


WHOOPEE! 


The lanky captain of “The Washingtons,” in his 
blue and red one-piece suit, was saying earnestly as 
he lay on his cot, pointing his cleated shoe at the 
suitcases stored in the rafters overhead: 

“Now if you hold me to-day. Wish, we’ll beat 
*The Worlds’ all hollow. Saturday, when they tied 
us—” 

“What score?” inquired Wish from his neighbor¬ 
ing cot. 

“19 to 19, but we only played six innings,” an¬ 
swered Shorty Howard, who sat on Wish Craig’s 
cot, lacing up his baseball shoes. “They could not 
get to Legs much.” 

“They were lucky to tie. That’s all I’ll say. 
But they won’t be so lucky to-day. I’m in form,” 
concluded Lanciano modestly. 

“Yes; and old Doc could not hold you at all,” 
observed Elmo Ranier suddenly from his place in 
the aisle between the cots, where he was idly swing¬ 
ing Wish’s yellowed bat at imaginary balls. 

“Why ‘The Worlds’ got five of the eight runs they 
got in the sixth, all because old Doc gave them to 
them. He could not hold Legs at all. They only 
had to walk home.” 

“Why didn’t you take him out, then, if he was so 
rotten 

“Couldn’t, Wish. Didn’t have a catcher any 
better who came from our city,” answered the cap¬ 
tain frankly. 

“That won’t happen this morning,” said Shorty 
loyally, as he stood up to test his shoes. ‘‘Hey, 
Wish.?” 

Wish Craig did not answer directly, but he took 


WASHINGTON VS. THE WORLD 


49 


his catcher’s mitt from under his head, where it had 
been doing duty as an extra pillow, and putting 
it on, soaked it affectionately. 

Sonny Socolow burst in, chased by the Thompson 
twins. They cornered and pummelled him. 

“I was only fooling. I didn’t mean that. Ouch! 
You’re hurting me.” 

“I’m only fooling too,” said Tubby, letting him 
up. Socolow made a face and got behind Legs’ 
back. 

“What’s the matter. Sonny.?” 

Teddy Thompson complained: 

“That little disgrace to Baltimore called us ^The 
Baby Elephant Battery’ and now all the other camp 
nuisances will take it up.” 

The rival batteries grinned amiably and finished 
dressing for the coming game. 

Sonny, buttoning the strap of his lobster scarlet 
one-piece suit over his left shoulder, demanded: 

“Say, what I want to know is why Brother Chris¬ 
topher can’t write United States.? What’s a ‘facto 
ipso.?’ Any of you fellows know.? It’s out there 
in big letters on the Bulletin Board.” 

Tubby, pulling a sweat-shirt over his head, 
stopped in a scarecrow attitude to explain: 

“That’s foreign language stuff, and it means 
when we lick the daylights out of ‘The Washingtons’ 
this morning, they got to buy the winners ice-cream 
cones at the Canteen.” 

“That’s right,” added Elmo Ranier falsely, “if 
you winners don’t win.” 

Sonny’s eyes brightened. “Does it, Legs? Does 
it, honest.?” 


60 


WHOOPEE! 


Wish broke in: 

“Sure, just as ‘Ranier’ is French for ‘freckles’ the 
size of ginger snaps, so ‘facto’ is Frenchy for ‘ice’ 
and ‘ipso’ for ‘cones,’ ten cent size. Thought you 
knew that much over in Baltimore. 

“But it also means, when it’s written in capitals, 
‘The Worlds’ will have to treat us, if they lose. 
Ain’t that right, Teddy?” 

Teddy Thompson winked. “Right, but most im¬ 
probable.” 

Sonny Socolow’s chubby face clouded. Then he 
confessed: 

“I guess I better wait and go swimming. I’m 
broke, to-day. I can’t play.” 

“Yes; you have to,” said Captain Tubby 
promptly, “and if you drop three flies out there in 
the sun parlor, you’ll not play on ‘The Worlds’ 
again. Do you hear. Sonny?” 

“I’m not deaf. Aw! you only put me on the team, 
you Baby Elephant,” claimed Sonny, not without 
some truth, “because you’re afraid I’d root for the 
other side.” 

Then the gong sounded and the two captains 
rushed out to round up their nines and lead them to 
the sun-swept diamond, beyond the glaring tennis 
courts. 

Most of the noisy non-players were already there, 
and tall Brother Nicholas, conspicuous in his Coun¬ 
selor’s clothes, announced the batteries for to-day’s 
game. 

Then, glancing at Wish’s watch, which he was 
guarding, he cried: 

“Nine o’clock. Batter up.” 

A hundred and thirty hectic minutes later. Wish, 


WASHINGTON VS. THE WORLD 


61 


wiggling out of his chest protector and coming into 
^*^The Washingtons’ ” bench, looked anxiously at the 
score board. 

He saw Dougherty, Official Scorer, chalking up a 
white ‘‘5.” 

Hastily he totalled the record of the eight and a 
half innings. 

123456 7 89 

WORLD 621323 10 15 
WASH. 241535 0 8 

‘‘They’re only five ahead, feUows. Last bats. 
Hey, Doc. Hey, Pete Gibson. Hey, some of you 
fellows. Who’s up.^ Let’s go.” 

“Washington” proceeded to follow their catcher’s 
admonition. 

Bernie Ball, first batter up in the ninth, stopped 
one of his namesake’s with his arm and took his 
base. 

Dick Garver waited and drew a base on balls. 

With two on and nobody out, “The Washingtons” 
and their rooters began to be heard out on the State 
Road. 

Jerry Healy hit a grounder to Tubby, and that 
pitcher, already on the up grade, stabbed the sphere, 
fumbled, and recovered it too late to head off the 
fiying Bernie Ball and Garver. 

Eventually, he threw to first. 

The first baseman, Healy, and the baseball seemed 
to arrive on the sack at the same time. 

The umpire raised a violent storm in the “Wash¬ 
ington” quarter by motioning the runner out. 

“What do you want to do ? Give them our game ? 



WHOOPEE! 


B2 

You’re a Religious. Aw! Brother, be honest, at 
least!” implored Babe Cronk. 

The “Washington” captain lined one over Red 
Cooper’s head at second, scoring two runs. A 
moment later Legs went to third on a wild pitch and 
continued home, when Teddy Thompson, the catcher, 
not to be outdone by his twin, threw to Fats Doran, 
and that stout third baseman of “The Worlds” tried 
vainly to capture a ball that did not come within 
three nautical yards of his frantic reach. 

“Nice work, Teddy,” complimented Wish; “Fats 
needs all the exercise you give him. Nice work, old 
man.” 

“Thanks,” snapped Teddy shortly. “You fel¬ 
lows haven’t even tied yet.” 

“Patience, Teddy,” advised Wish. 

Shorty Howard, the head of “Washington’s 
Murderer’s Row,” stooped for a handful of dust 
and then took his position at the plate. 

“Choke that bat and lean on it,” coached Legs. 
^‘Aw! Shorty, come through!” 

After two balls and a strike had been called on 
him, Shorty hit sharply between the shortstop’s 
legs, and Sonny, tearing in from center, was too 
anxious. The ball went through his legs, too. 

Shoity Howard pulled up at second and yelled 
hoarsely to Cronk: 

“Knock me in. Knock me in. Babe. It’s easy. 
Tubby’s going up.” 

Babe Cronk lifted a fly to center, and Sonny 
Socolow caught it. Then dropped it. 

Howard and Cronk started on high and stood 
safely on third and first, when the ball returned to 
the infield. 


WASHINGTON VS. THE WORLD 


63 


Above the din. Captain Tubby Thompson yelled 
to a comfortable-looking boy on “The World’s” 
bench: 

“Hey, Happy. Happy Grant. Get out there in 
center. You can’t do worse.” 

Then he faced the outfield and ordered: 

“Showers, Sonny.” 

The little figure in the lobster scarlet suit came 
in and its speech was violent. 

“If that young splinter grew as much as he 
talks—” observed Tubby, stung to a retort. 

“Yeh, I’d rather be a toothpick than a flat tire, 
you Baby Elephant. Baby Elephant! Baby El¬ 
ephant ! Up in the air 1” And Sonny Socolow, 
overlooking the fact that he had lately played for 
“The Worlds,” attached himself noisily to the 
‘^Washington” cheering section. 

Lanciano shouted secret instructions in Elmo 
Banier’s ear. Then he raced back to coach at 
third. 

Elmo made no attempt at the ball Tubby pitched, 
and Babe shot for second. 

“Strike one,” boomed the umpire. 

Then Ranier swung at the next one and his con¬ 
tribution rolled undecided along the third base line. 
Eats Doran lumbered in and scooped up the ball. 
Too late: the bases were full. 

The Thompson twins went into consultation, half¬ 
way between the box and the plate. 

A wild crowd of non-playing Washingtonians, 
spread from third to home, like figures on a Grecian 
frieze, began to chant the tribal refrain: 

“He’s up! He’s up! He’s up in the air! He’s? 
up!” 


64 


WHOOPEE! 


Above the chant rose the shrill and maddening 
voice of Sonny Socolow, Washington rooter. 

Tubby Thompson looked dubiously at Wish 
Craig, as he and his yellowed bat appeared at the 
plate. The previous eight innings had inspired in 
the pitcher’s breast a respect, almost a reverence, 
for that yellowed bat. 

Likewise, the tribal chant— 

‘‘He’s up! He’s up! He’s up in the air! He’s 
up 1”—^was beginning to have its effect. 

Likewise, a tireless dancing demon in lobster 
scarlet was substituting “Baby Elephant” for the 
personal pronoun “he.” 

The stout pitcher was tired, human, and thirteen. 

The ball came, and Wish, heeding Legs’ frenzied 
adjuration to “knock the cover off‘ and give it a 
ride,” swung his yellowed bat savagely. 

The center and right and left fielders of “The 
Worlds” turned like automatons and fied toward the 
snake fence. 

When the ball was returned from the edge of the 
corn field, three barelegged “Washingtons” in rapid 
succession had flashed across the plate, and the 
fourth, unnecessary runner, somewhat winded, and 
accompanied by a delirious gallery, whose joy was 
audible in Leonardtown, a mile up the State Road, 
followed immediately. 

“The Baby Elephant is up in the air,” still 
chanted Sonny mechanically. “We won! 

“Whoopee! The Baby Elephant Battery went 
up in the air—facto ipso.” 

Then, a shrieking figure in lobster scarlet flew 
toward the shelter of the bungalows before the in¬ 
furiated charge of twin “Baby Elephants.” 


CHAPTER VI 


FOK THE LOVE OF SAFETY FIRST 

S IX bronzed and one freshly sunburnt boy, 
garbed in vari-colored two-piece, one-piece, and, 
what might be christened, half-piece bathing suits, 
poured out of “Swampoodle Inn.” 

The smallest figure in lobster scarlet carried an 
inner tube, graced around his neck like the folds of 
a parboiled boa-constrictor. 

The seven picked their way gingerly across the 
end of the third camp street, “Gerard Avenue,” and 
by the screened side of “Mother Inn” with its 
faintly reminiscent hospital odors. 

Then, Indian file, they dropped down the long gray 
stairway, that led through the jungle-green gloom of 
the wooded slope, down to the sparkling waters of 
Breton Bay. 

It was a bathing hour in Camp Columbus, and while 
these seven were not the last, they were by no means 
the first. For up from the shore and the water came 
the shrill “Whoopees” of the Junior Campers. 

A crane-like boy, gloved in a crimson one-piece 
suit, turned on the steps to yell back: 

“Now you take your swimming test off Brother 
Norbert the first thing this morning, Wish. You 
missed all the fun on the diving raft yesterday. And 
you’re going to miss more when the races come off 
55 


66 


WHOOPEE! 


Friday. What do you want to fool and paddle 
around, like Sonny, there in the ‘Kids’ Pool’ for.^ I 
ask you that?” 

“Gee Whizzers ! Didn’t I want to pass my test off 
yesterday morning after the ball game, and yesterday 
in the afternoon, and yesterday in the evening? That 
lifeguard Brother said he had no time now,” defended 
Wish Craig in a hurt tone. “I swim as good as you. 

“Don’t I swim better than Lanciano at the Tidal 
Basin, Shorty?” Wish called up to the boy next be¬ 
hind him. “And at the Municipal Baths, too 1” 

Shorty Howard, plump and comfortable in a green 
and yellow monogrammed suit, parried diplo¬ 
matically. He did not care to umpire this chronic 
dispute. 

“Sure, Legs. Sure, Wish.” 

Shorty broke off to complain; 

“Hey, look out, back there I What are you try¬ 
ing to do, push me off this step into the woods?” 

The lean and freckled-looking Elmo Ranier, burnt 
to a reddish brown from the waist up, consoled: 

“Well, why don’t you walk faster?” 

Sonny Socolow, coming down between the Thomp¬ 
son twins, shouted a warning: 

“You fellows better cut that out and watch out for 
the ‘Bandit Bees.’ There is always one in the 
meadow, below the last step, at swimming time. And 
they sting too, if you wave at them. You ought to 
have seen one of Bernie Ball’s cheeks last week. The 
balloon was going up. Ain’t that right. Tubby 

Tubby Thompson in a lifeguard suit of blue pants 
and white jersey with the camp “C” on his breast, 
reached out a comfortable hand to close on Socolow’s 
neck. 


FOR THE LOVE OF SAFETY FIRST 57 


But Sonny, with sudden realization of certain 
treacherous rooting at yesterday’s morning game, 
dodged, at the risk of a broken limb, imder Teddy’s 
arm and leapt a step below. Ranier caught the 
red inner tube and literally rung Socolow back to 
safety. 

“Those bees do not sting half as much as you are 
going to. Big Boy, next time you root against your 
team, you little traitor. You’re per—perfidious. 
That’s what you are. Sonny. Why don’t you 
move over and live in Washington. I wish you 
would.” 

“Yah! You Baby Elephant,” sang back Sonny, 
“why don’t you?” 

They had left the last step and still walked Indian 
file across the meadow with its herd of camp cows 
grazing peacefully along the trail side. 

Suddenly, Legs Lanciano began a queer dance. 
His crimson one-piece suit and long bronzed limbs 
flashed kaleidoscopic against the meadow greenery, 
while he hollered: 

“Hey, look out. Here’s one of those ‘Bandit 
Bees.’ Sonny, call your winged Baltimore gunman 
oflT. Shoo! Scat 1 Beat it! It’s not right to 
attack a man from Washington, when he’s not— 

The Indian file broke like bird shot, but little 
Socolow stood his ground and advised: 

“Aw, stand still. Legs. They won’t hurt jou. then. 
I learnt over in Baltimore how to handle them. It’s 
only a—” 

Whatever it only was, was lost in a shriek, and 
Sonny Socolow threw the inner tube over his head to 
clap his hand to his neck. There fell away a small 
black insect. 


68 


WHOOPEE! 


It had not met death in vain, for fire blazed in 
Sonny’s neck. 

But the rest had fled to the pier, where with 
joyous “Wlioopees” they joined the wet mob that 
pushed and shrieked for places on the ladder at the 
foot of the water-chute. 

Tall Brother Nicholas, on guard in a canoe off 
the spring-board, paddled lazily, and occasionally 
warned a non-swimmer to get back into shoaler water. 

Wish shot down the chute, bob-sled style, to hit 
the water and skid till he sank in a welter of waves. 

Still new to an iron-clad camp regulation, he swam 
out toward the lifeguard’s canoe. 

His Counselor stopped his paddle in the water and 
called: 

“Wish, you like swimming, don’t you?” 

“My ancestors were fish. Brother.” 

‘Well, then you’ll be served up with them at 
Friday’s dinner, if you come out here before you 
pass your swimming test. So for the love of Safety 
First, back to the ‘Kids’ Pool,’ till Brother Norbert 
certifies you as competent, proficient—” 

“Whoopee! I know somebody who swallowed a 
dictionary,” Wish exclaimed as he turned on his 
back to swim in. 

“Well, Master Washington, that’s better than 
swallowing a lot of water unnecessarily,” came the 
voice from the canoe. 

Wish grinned his approval. 

When the water was breast deep, he stood up and 
found himself in the midst of an uproarious game of 
“Shark Tag.” 

He saw little Sonny struggling to keep his big 


FOR THE LOVE OF SAFETY FIRST 


69 


toe above the surface of the water—for the rule is 
in “Shark Tag,” that the “sharks” cannot tag you, 
if you show a big toe above the water line. At the 
same time. Sonny was vigorously splashing Red 
Cooper away. 

But the “red-haired shark” did not mind water, 
and he kept driving Sonny, striving desperately to 
keep one toe out, into the shoaler water before the 
racked canoes. 

This had the natural result. Little Socolow 
tripped and next moment “the red-haired shark” dove 
at him. 

Wish heard the warning: 

“Sonny’s the shark! Sonny Socolow’s the shark! 
Splash the kid shark away!” 

And many glistening hands shot blinding sheets 
of water at the unfortunate cub “tiger of the sea.” 

This water game looked too good to keep out of, 
so Wish swam closer. 

“You playing, Wish.^” yelled “the kid shark.” 

Wish promptly stuck his big toe above the surface 
to render himself immune, and then nodded. 

“Aw! What do you want to back to the deep 
water for.? You know I can’t swim good yet,” 
begged "Sonny, as Wish retreated outward. 

He bumped into Jerry Healy, who was using, with¬ 
out permission, Socolow’s inner tube. 

Then Wish heard Sonny’s peremptory commands. 

Later, an angry voice hailed from the pier. It 
belonged to Lanciano. 

“Hey, you sun-blistered dumb-bell, come away 
from that kid’s game and take your swimming test 
now. Brother Norbert’s ready.” 


60 


WHOOPEE! 


Legs beckoned violently. 

Wish came wading out of the water, through the 
struggling mob of “shark meat.” 

Oft* the spring-board, the swimmers were diving 
like a school of porpoise and splashing in to the 
ladder. 

^‘Go and tell Brother you want to pass it olT now, 
and then you can come with us and have fun off* the 
float.” 

Brother Norbert, burnt almost to a chocolate tone 
and with tlie physique of a traffic cop, stood amiably 
at the end of the pier, where he could have an eye on 
all bathing. 

Legs introduced the swimming candidate. 

“How far do you think you can swim, Craig?” 

“Maybe, a hundred yards, sir.” 

“Can you make it around the ‘Santa Maria’ and 
back to the ladder?” 

“I’ll try. Brother.” 

“That’s the spirit. Safety First. No camper is 
allowed out here in deep water till he does make it. 
So— 

“Well, for the love of Safety First, will you look 
at thatl” 

Halfway to the moored motor boat, the small 
figure of Sonny Socolow lay across the red coils of 
his inner tube and his flying legs were giving a credi¬ 
table imitation of a Mississippi River stern wheeler. 
A chorus of joyous “Whoopees” issued from the lone 
voyager. 

Brother Norbert bellowed a warning to his 
companion on canoe guard off the float. Then he 
pointed to Sonny and gave the sweeping motion of 
an umpire declaring the runner out. 


FOR THE LOVE OF SAFETY FIRST 61 


Swiftly the other life-guard’s canoe shot toward 
the inner tube, and Wish heard a “Whoopee” halted 
in midair. 

An anxious voice floated in to the dock; 

“I’m taking my swimming test, Brother. Honest, 
I am. Brother Norbert didn’t say I couldn’t.” 

^‘And he certainly didn’t say that you could, my 
son,” said that Brother to the pier in general. 

“Well, you put about and take your tube and your 
test right back to the ‘Kids’ Pool.’ Suppose you had 
a blow out out here. What then.?” 

“My Guardian Angel wouldn’t let me have tire 
trouble out here where it’s deep. Honestly, he 
wouldn’t. Brother.” 

But despite the undoubted angelic protection, the 
bow of Brother Nicholas’ canoe, like the muzzle of 
a faithful collie, shepherded the non-swimmer back 
to shoal depths. 

Brother Norbert commanded: 

“Get your clothes on, Sonny. You’ve been in 
camp long enough to know you have no business out 
there till you passed your swimming test. 

“Better make it fast, or I might let you have a 
Paddling Test.” 

Brother Nicholas grinned up at Brother Nor¬ 
bert : 

“No wonder you and I are raising gray hairs this 
season.” 

Wish looked from the black locks of one lifeguard 
to the close-cropped brown of the other and shook 
his head. 

Then Brother Norbert called down: 

“Give this new chap his svHmming test.” 

The tall guard with the blue “C” on his jersey 


62 


WHCX)PEE! 


gave his canoe a shove toward the pier head and 
asked: 

‘‘Which one now?” 

Brother Norbert laid his hand on Wish’s shoulder. 
Wish winced, for it was sunburnt and peeling. Then 
the Brother stooped and whispered: 

“Whenever you are going into the water, lad, ask 
your Guardian Angel to fly by. Sonny has the right 
idea. 

“Now bless yourself and dive in.” 

Wish walked out to the end of the spring-board. 
His face grew serious. Then his hand went through 
those mysterious evolutions that pass for the Sign of 
the Cross with many boys. 

Brother Norbert stopped him to inquire: 

“Say, are those ‘Bandit Bees’ bothering you? I 
don’t see any around.” 

“Bees!” asked Wish, his gray eyes full of trouble. 
“Gee Whizzers ! Where ?” 

A smile broke out on his face. 

“Oh! I get you. Brother. Touch all the bases, 
hey?” 

And he blessed himself most devoutly, giving his 
scapular medal a pious squeeze at the “Amen.” 

He dove and came up alongside the guard’s 
canoe. 

“Where do I go from here. Brother?” 

“See that motor boat? You swim out and around 
it. Don’t touch it, though. And back to the ladder. 
Now take your time. Dinner won’t be for two hours 
and the Canteen is not open. Swim easily and keep 
your fingers closed.” 

Wish was off: his big bronzed Counselor paddling 
silently alongside. 


FOR THE LOVE OF SAFETY FIRST 63 


Wish saw the “Santa Maria’^ grow nearer and 
nearer. 

He breasted its bows, turned, and lost the shrill 
^und of non-swimmers in the “Kids’ Pool” by the 
water-chute. 

Then he was rounding the stem of the motor boat, 
her twin propellers showing clearly through the warm 
water, and, suddenly, the camp picture came into 
view again. There was the pier with its diving 
group; burly Brother Norbert just rising in a perfect 
swan dive. The green-gray meadow, haunt of 
^‘Bandit Bees,” and the still, white and brown backs 
of the grazing cows. Beyond, the start of the steps, 
leading up through the jungle side of the cliff to 
the tall trees, that stood out sharply against the 
blue of the heavens. 

It looked as far away as the tip of the camp flag¬ 
staff, just showing its bit of color, and Wish realized 
that this was a longer swim than he had been 
accustomed to. With the thought, his arms and 
legs grew leady and moved with difficulty. 

He saw with the corner of his eye, his Counselor 
turn his canoe slightly toward him, and draw nearer. 
And he remembered what the other guard had 
whispered. So he prayed: 

“Angel, help a chap to get back to that ladder.” 

There came into his mind something Shorty had 
said in “Swampoodle Inn” last evening, as they lay 
cot to cot, talking softly in the dark. “I’ve learnt 
a new trick. When you tire in the water, turn 
on your back and make the water be an old mat¬ 
tress.” 

Wish twisted. The view of the camp frontage 
gave place to a million miles of cloudless August sky 


64 


WHOOPEE! 


and a blinding sun. He heard a friendly voice en¬ 
courage : 

“That’s wise, old man. Take it easy and save 
your strength. You’re doing fine. More than half 
the way already. Kick out a bit and you’ll go 
along as you rest. And shut that main intake valve 
of yours. What’s the idea of swallowing Breton 
Bay.?^ Want to stop all swimming around here.^” 

Wish’s lips glued shut and he suppressed a desire 
to grin. 

Then he felt an ease flow through his muscles, and 
second strength came to his tired limbs. 

“Home, Angel,” he murmured happily and turned 
on his side for the last spurt. 

Elmo and Shorty were dancing a war dance of 
their own on the end of the spring-board. Legs was 
yelling “Whoopees!” 

In the sound was mystic strength and camp fellow¬ 
ship, and as Wish touched the lowest rung of the lad¬ 
der a wet hand grasped his shoulder. Lanciano was 
shouting from his monkey perch, three rungs above: 

“Nice work. Wish. You’ve passed your swimming 
test. Didn’t he, Brother Norbert.? How about it, 
Brother Nicholas?” 

Both life-guards nodded affirmatively. 

Then Wish lay with his peeling nose buried in wet 
burlap at the end of the pier, while his three chums 
were counseling jointly: 

“You take your canoe test in fifteen minutes. 
Then we all will go fishing this after, at the end of 
Letter Writing Hour.” 

Wish nodded happily, but he objected: 

“Gee Whizzers! Go away and let a fellow get 
his wind first, can’t you?” 


CHAPTER VII 


SHARK TAG 


\ ^THEN breathing became an unconscious eifort 
V V once more. Wish Craig turned on his elbow to 
watch the dripping line that forever formed behind 
the spring-board. 

Shorty Howard was taking a short run. His 
plump form, molded to its green and yellow mono- 
grammed suit, poised almost horizontally in the air, 
arms out, till it resembled momentarily that of a 
flying cherub. Then his arms lengthened over his 
head and the pier cut off Wish’s further vision. 

‘‘About seventy on that,” judged Brother Norbert 
leniently. 

“Watch this swan. Brother. This is the way it 
should be done,” yelled Lanciano. 

“You hate yourself, don’t you, Legs.^’ asked a 
shrill voice, and Wish saw Sonny Socolow in khaki 
shorts and shirt standing over him. 

Brother looked at the small boy severely, and 
Sonny hastened to defend his presence. 

“You only said get out of the water and dress. 
You didn’t say get off the pier, Brother. I’m 
obedient.” 

“I’m surprised to learn that. What’s the matter, 
going back to Heaven soon?” And the Counselor 
turned to judge Lanciano’s swan dive. 

65 


66 


WHOOPEE! 


“About thirty-eight. Try it again and try and 
get your legs in so that they do not show so.” 

Sonny winked obviously at Wish and noiselessly 
stationed himself on the edge of the pier behind the 
burly back of Brother Norbert. Again he winked 
one blue eye and then the other at Wish. 

Wish grinned with delighted understanding. 

He called innocently: 

“Say, Brother, how do you get the right twist in 
a swan?” 

The Counselor turned to explain to Wish, and in 
the turning slightly brushed against the set figure 
of Sonny Socolow. 

A wild shriek of fright arose and Sonny—shorts, 
shirt, and sunburn—swayed for a breathless moment 
on the edge of the pier, and then twisted and grabbed 
his nose in midair. 

He missed Legs by inches and as he came up, be¬ 
fore Lanciano supported him, he protested; 

“You joggled me, Brother. Ask Wish. Let me 
go, Legs.” 

Lanciano attempted to support him toward the 
ladder, but he ordered: 

“No; the long way. Take me into shoal water, 
by the canoe rack.” 

Brother looked long at the smiling “barge,” Sonny 
Socolow, being towed ashore, and he looked suspi¬ 
ciously, but not being able to prove his thoughts, he 
wisely held his peace. 

Wish ran up the pier and Lanciano met him. 

They both sought the hydraulic pump for a drink 
of artesian well water. 

Legs began; 

“Now see here, Wish. ‘Swamfoodle Inn’ will 


SHARK TAG 


67 


need you in the canoe races Friday, so you better get 
by your canoe test now. It’s dead easy. Shorty 
and Elmo passed theirs the first time they tried it. 
You take the very lightest canoe and—” 

‘‘I’ll show you the one,” cried Sonny, dripping 
streams of water. 

“ ‘You better go to confession,’ ” quoted Wish, 
recalling a remark made at the Sunday breakfast 
table. 

“I’ll tell 3 ’ou, anyway. It’s the gray one with 
the red trimmings, down by the end of the rack.” 

Socolow had run out on the pier. 

“There’s Gardiner O’Malley launching it now,’^ 
he announced. 

“What must I do to pass the canoe test.^” asked 
Wish, now anxious to have this over, too. 

“It’s a cinch. You’ve passed your swimming 
test and this is easier, ’cause all you got to do is 
paddle the old boat out as far as the Counselor 
tells you. Then throw your paddle overboard, tip 
the canoe, recover your paddle, and bring everything 
in. But that’s not enough. You must rack your 
canoe in its place down there.” 

Legs pointed a browned skinney aimi toward the 
row of gray and green bottomed canoes, that lay 
along the sunny shore. 

“O’Malley’s going to take his test again now. 
He couldn’t tip the canoe last time he tried. Come 
on and watch him.” 

They raced down the length of the pier and arrived 
by the spring-board in time to hear Brother Nor- 
bert’s ultimatum: 

“No, you don’t stay out here. Sonny. Back to 
the solid earth. I may have joggled you and I may 


68 


WHOOPEE! 


not have joggled you, but you stay olF the pier for 
the rest of this swimming hour.” 

Sonny retreated backward, pretending he was 
going to slip off the pier. 

Wish looked out toward the motor boat. 

He saw a parboiled-looking boy in blue trunks 
stop paddling at the order of Brother Nicholas. 

Then the boy knelt and started to rock his canoe 
vigorously. But it was evidently ‘‘foolproof,” or 
almost so, for though it shipped water, it would not 
turn turtle. 

Brother Nicholas suggested, and his voice carried 
in to the pier: 

“Try standing up, Gard.” 

Gardiner O’Malley did, and as though the canoe 
had received a command, one side came up, the yel¬ 
low ribbed bottom showed, and O’Malley sat back 
into the water. A smile of triumph spread across 
his face as he disappeared. 

When he came up blowing for breath, he heard: 

“Recover your paddle and take the canoe into 
the rack.” 

Legs advised: 

“Now when you tip her, Wish, you first shove 
your paddle under the canoe seat. It will float 
there and you won’t have any bother swimming for 
it. And there is an easier way than that to bring 
in your canoe. Why doesn’t he put one arm over 
the bottom and kick? You do that, do you hear 
me?” 

Brother Norbert called out: 

“You, Wish Craig. Want to take your canoe 
test now? You’re next, if you do.” 

Wish grinned affirmatively. 


SHARK TAG 


69 


Then the life-guard directed him to wait by the 
canoe rack. 

A group of Senior boys came trooping down, fresh 
from tennis. The Juniors were sent ashore and they 
went promptly, for they knew the dread punishment 
that befell the laggard in the water: no swim next 
time. 

Legs called over: 

“We Intermediates don’t have to go get out yet. 
Borrow Gard’s paddle. Tell him you’ll look after 
it good and leave it in ‘Keep Out Inn.’ 

“We’re going out to the diving float with Brother 
Norbert.” 

Brother Nicholas paddled in. He smiled at Wish 
and said: 

“Got your wind back.? That’s the spirit. Pass 
your tests promptly and get into all the camp fun. 
That boy who has just brought in his canoe success¬ 
fully, has been here for two weeks, and look at all 
the water sport he has missed! Take the same 
canoe he had, boy, and come ahead.” 

Wish righted the gray canoe on the rack and then 
raised the bow and slid the light craft into the water. 

He had been in rowboats and skiffs on the Potomac 
above the Aqueduct Bridge, but not so frequently in 
canoes. So he stepped into the side of the canoe. 
It went down and shipped water. 

His Counselor called: 

“No: that’s a landlubber trick. Getting into a 
canoe, step into the center and always keep as low 
in a canoe as possible. Remember that always, and 
you’ll very likely die in a railway wreck.” 

So Wish stepped on the center and the canoe kept 
on an even keel. He stuck his paddle into the water 


70 


WHOOPEE! 


as he saw the Counselor doing, and with slow strokes, 
headed her out in the general direction of the motor 
boat. 

He soon found steering a canoe was a new art, 
but his instructor showed him how to keep her bow 
on a point and Wish quickly caught the knack. 

It was fairly easy going and they passed the other 
guard swimming in from the diving float. 

Brother Norbert called to Brother Nicholas: 

“Keep an eye on those ducks out there. The 
Camp Director has just sent for me.” 

Then he encouraged: 

“Nice work, Wish. Pass your tests and get into 
all the fun.” 

Brother Nicholas shifted his course away from 
the motor boat and directed Wish to paddle over by 
the diving tower. 

L*egs, very conspicuous against the sky line, from 
his perch on top of the diving platform, shouted: 

“Whoopee! Wish!” And then he executed a 
crane-like swan dive. 

“Minus forty-eight on that, you old ham-and- 
egger,” yelled Wish critically. 

Brother Nicholas’ canoe was, perhaps, twenty feet 
off and he stopped paddling. 

“Now, Wish, tip her and take her ashore.” 

Wish felt a sudden fear, for it was a strange thing 
to deliberately tip a canoe in deep water. He had 
always heard tipping a canoe was the first reel in a 
water tragedy, and he still had some of the natural 
dread of boats, that should not, but does belong to 
boys who are not “water rats.” 

Wish timidly rose on one knee in the canoe: his 
paddle still clasped in his right hand. 


SHARK TAG 


71 


Leg's from the float yelled: 

“^Remember what I told you about the paddle. 
Remember, Wish.” 

Wish nodded and threw the paddle under the canoe 
seat. 

He blessed himself and then throwing one leg over 
the side, grasped the uprising side of the canoe and 
gave it a half-hearted pull. The canoe rocked and 
settled on almost an even keel. 

Again and again Wish attempted to tip his canoe, 
but it proved its right to its advertised claim, “as 
foolproof as man can make it.” 

Frank advice came from the Seniors and Inter¬ 
mediates on the float. And Legs and Elmo and 
Shorty were yelling their encouragement. 

Wish was sweating and he halted. 

“I can’t make this blamed old cradle turn,” he 
complained. “Gee Whizzers! I’m all in!” 

His canoe had drifted in close below the div¬ 
ing float, and Shorty was taking off from the 
tower. 

Wish saw him sail out gracefully, turn and drop. 
He was just about to yell: 

“Whoopee! A century on that.” 

His verdict was drowned in a chorus of excite 
and fearsome yells: 

“Shark! Sharks! Shark!” 

The boys on the float stood petrified, while the 
few in the water fought frantically for the float 
ladder. 

Almost alongside of his canoe, Wish saw a smooth 
black body curve across the water and in front of 
it rose the head of Shorty Howard, all unconscious 
of the excitement. 


WHOOPEEJ 


With an instinctive toss that Wish knew so well, 
he saw Howard throw his hair out of his eyes. 

Then Shorty saw the cause of the disturbance, and 
abject fear overcame him. 

Instead of splashing, he threw his hands over his 
head and screamed in mortal terror: 

‘‘O Wish, save me!” 

A great affection for this chum clutched Wish’s 
heart. But fear had no place there. 

He stood up in the canoe and his hands came up 
in diving position. 

Things happened. 

The flooring under Wish seemed to move. He 
was seeing the yellow inside of his canoe and the sky 
at the same time. He heard increasing shrieks from 
the float, and the water of Breton Bay closed over 
his face. 

Sinking down in the cool green depths, he opened 
his eyes and saw a vague black torpedo shaped 
shadow dart by. The water about his face grew 
darker and then his feet touched soft mud lightly. 

He kicked out and came shooting up to the surface. 

He grabbed the struggling Shorty and strove to 
hold his head above the surface. And then the bow 
of the Counselor’s canoe shot close and a firm hand 
gripped him painfully by the shoulder. 

He managed to push Shorty toward where he 
could clutch the side of the canoe. Both began to 
cough vigorously and restore Breton Bay quantities 
of its element. 

As they were towed into the diving float, Brother 
Nicholas was saying soothingly: 

^‘Sharks, hey! Don’t any of you know an in¬ 
nocent porpoise when you see one? Why, that’s as 


SHARK TAG 


73 


playful as ‘Ferdinand’ and ‘Isabella,’ the Canteen 
kittens.” 

Then to the group on the float: 

“You hysterical old ladies better swim ashore and 
take up knitting. Where were any of you when you 
were needed? It’s almost the end of the swimming 
time. All ashore!” 

None answered the Brother life-guard, but after 
inspecting the several square miles of The Bay 
visible from the float, all dove in meekly and splashed 
out for the pier. 

The big Counselor took Shorty, still coughing, 
into his canoe and said: 

“Nice work, Wish. You were not afraid to go 
to your chum in need. 

“But, now that you managed to tip your canoe, 
you had better finish your test. There’s your lone¬ 
some canoe trying to drift over to Buzzards’ Point.” 

Wish swam over and, kicking his legs and swim¬ 
ming with one free hand, worked the canoe toward 
the pier. Tiring of that, he lay astride the up¬ 
turned hull, and paddled the canoe in with the two 
paddles with which nature had outfitted him. 

Little Sonny, who had changed back into lobster 
scarlet, was dancing and “Whoopee-ing” gayly by 
the canoe rack. 

“I saw it all. Big Boy,” Sonny yelled. “Now I’ll 
show you the way to rack your canoe.” 

Wish slid into the shoal water as his canoe 
grounded at the shore line. 

“Take the front part and lift it on the rack,” 
ordered Sonny Socolow. 

But Brother Nicholas called: 

“It’s a wonder you wouldn’t get your tests by. 


74. 


WHOOPEE t 


before you teach others. Leave him alone, Sonny. 
Wish knows what to do when he has to do it. 

“But I warn you officially, if you place one of 
those shell-like toes of yours over the water-line, 
there will be no more swims for you to-day. I saw 
that trick you played on simple Brother Norbert and 
I haven’t said anything—yet.” 

Sonny Socolow put his forefinger to his lips and 
winked a blue-eyed wink at his friend, the Counselor 
of “SwAMPOODLJE InN.” 

Wish got a firm purchase under the upset canoe 
and lifted the bow straight up. The air suction 
within the canoe held for a moment and then the 
bow came clear and the weight of the canoe was 
much lighter. 

He tugged till be had the dripping bow over the 
outside rack. Then he waded astern, and pushing 
and shoving, worked the canoe up the rack. 

When the canoe hung, its bow aimed like an anti¬ 
aircraft gun, at the tall locust trees against the 
sky line of the camp cliff. Sonny ordered: 

“Now tilt the bow. Tilt the bow and joggle it. 
Do you hear me?” 

Wish did and his canoe test was successfully 
passed. He was free to take a canoe and explore 
Breton Bay as far as Pawpaw Hollow. 

Shorty, still silent from his scare, walked behind 
Wish up the long steps. 

Halfway up, Sonny stopped and patting Wish 
on the shoulder, importantly announced: 

“You earned ‘Swampoodle Inn’ twenty points this 
morning, boy. Ten for your swimming test and 
ten more for your canoe one. Our bungalow is go- 


SHARK TAG 


75 


ing to win the Cup . this week! Whoopee I 
Whoopee 1” 

But Sonny Socolow was not quite mathematically 
correct, for at dinner that noon, before Brother 
Christopher said Grace, he made an announcement: 
the conclusion of which was: 

“So you boys all know what happened—or, thank 
God! did not happen, during swimming liour this 
morning. Camp Columbus admires bravery and it 
values presence of mind, but when it discovers both 
together in the same one hundred and five pound 
youngster. Camp Columbus wishes publicly to ex¬ 
press its appreciation. 

“Therefore—The Camp Director stopped, and 
a hundred hungr}^ campers listened silently. “There¬ 
fore, the Counselors award twenty-five points, to 
count on this week’s Cup tally, to Master Aloysius 
Craig of ‘Swampoodle Inn.’ ” 

Even for Camp Columbus, that dinner was un¬ 
usually vociferous. 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE ALL-STAR ZOO 

T he long Pavilion was forcibly closed to curious 
campers, and Red Cooper and Fats Doran 
stood guard at the entrance. Within the open 
Pavilion, Brother Nicholas, Director of Camp Dra¬ 
matics, and his bronzed crew of volunteer helpers and 
hinderers, were busy with rope and boxes, sheets 
and blankets, putting the final touches on the set¬ 
ting for the weekly Thursday night entertainment. 

That, to-night, most of these preparations had to 
do with animal acts, was evident from the painted 
announcement, that had hung all day on the Bulletin 
Board. 


ONE NIGHT ONLY 

THE CAMP COLUMBUS DRAMATIC CLUB 
will present at costless expense 
THE ALL-STAR ZOO 
in 

REAL ARTIFICIAL ANIMAL ACTS 
SEE SEE SEE 

The Tame Wild Beares on Skates. 

The Seales with the Educated Tales. 

Two—Twin Elephants—Two. 

The Singing Cameles. 

The Blinking Buzzards. 

The Parrotes that Talk Sense. 

76 


THE ALL-STAR ZOO 


77 


Tap—The Boxing Cats—Rap. 

The Hungry Giraffes’ Last Meal. Almost Human. 
The Baby Monkeyes in “Monkey Shines,” 

DANGER!! 

DONT COME IF YOUR LIPS ARE CRACKED. 

DANGER!! 

Many brains in ‘‘Swampoodle Inn” had con¬ 
tributed to the final wording of this announcement, 
but the drawings, printing and the original spelling 
were the workmanship of Wish Craig. 

A, sort of all day argument had been carried on 
by the various nut brown groups that stopped to dis¬ 
cuss this sign. And it was clear, the plural spell¬ 
ing of certain nouns was not unanimous among Camp 
Columbus’ campers. 

While Red Cooper and Fats Doran were having a 
rather heated discussion with Babe Cronk over the 
plural spelling of ‘‘baby monkeys” at one entrance 
to the Pavilion, Sonny Socolow, who had bribed the 
Babe with the promise of half his next ice-cream 
cone, slipped by the unguarded entrance. 

His blue eyes swept the ring and its semi-circle 
of blanket-walled cages for the evening’s “artificial 
animals,” and they rested affectionately on the ex¬ 
treme end, where a large partition was destined to 
cage “The Baby Monkeyes.” 

Red Cooper spotted the intruder and he called: 

“Your watch is about three hours fast. Sonny. 
Get out of the Pavilion and stay out till the doors 
open. 

“If you make me chase you, somebody will have 
to go to ‘Mother Inn’ and tell you all about the 
show. Remember.” 


78 


WHOOPEE! 


Sonny Socolow walked quickly o\er to where 
Brother Nicholas was busy erecting a swing in the 
monkey cage. 

“Please, Brother, may I speak to you in secret 
on a private matter? Don’t let Red chase me, 
please.” 

“What trouble are you in now. Sonny?” asked his 
Counselor. 

“It’s this,” said Socolow, dropping his voice to a 
confidential whisper, “that Wish Craig doesn’t know 
how to do a monkey at all right. He’s nervous, too. 
I watched him practice this afternoon, down by the 
watermelon patch, when he thought he was alone, 
and it was sad. Honest, Brother, it was. 

“He acted like a sick cat that had eaten poison 
and was going to die. I had one once-t in Balti¬ 
more, we found at Jones’ Falls. ‘Jonesy’ could see 
all right, but she must have had a cold in her nose 
that day, ’cause it lapped up some arsenic. You 
know that stuff looks like milk. And—” 

“Is that the private matter you invaded this 
Pavilion to tell me about when— 

“No: Brother, I just remembered about ‘Jonesy.’ 
But W^ish was sad. And the noises he thought were 
monkey sounds! Why, Brother, honest, they sounded 
like a—like a mouse when your older sister steps on 
it by accident. They were sad as anything. He’s 
nervous, too, and may hurt himself and spoil the 
show.” 

“Why are you telling me all this ?” asked Brother, 
stretching the side wall of blanket taut. “Better 
warn Wish.” 

“That’s just it. I tried to and he hit me on the 


THE ALL-STAR ZOO 


79 


muscle and my arm hurts like anything. He’s— 
he’s looking for me now.” 

Socolow’s eyes clouded up at the recollection. 

‘‘I’m busy now, Sonny, and you’ll have to settle 
your own scraps. We only have an hour before 
supper and I’ll have to mend that camel suit before 
we can possibly use it. So you’d better tell me all 
about it in the morning at swimming time.” 

Sonny’s features broke into a coaxing smile. 

“Sure, Brother, I’ll paddle for you to-morrow. 
But, Brother Nicholas, Wish is too nervous and big 
to be that baby monkey. He doesn’t even look like 
one. Let him be a tame wild bear. He knows how 
to roller skate fancy.” 

“Well, I can’t improve on Nature. He’ll have to 
look like one and it’s too late to get another camper 
and rehearse him to do monkey shines. His face and 
nerves will have to hold out. I hope mine do till 
after Night Pra^^ers,” declared the Counselor finally. 

“No: it isn’t too late. I know just the boy to 
do the Baby Monkey. Honest, I do. Brother 
Nicholas. Honest, I do. Just try me. Look a 
sec.” 

And as the Director of Camp Dramatics watched. 
Sonny Socolow whipped a stuffed stocking out of his 
belt and let it trail behind. He produced from the 
bosom of his shirt the red wrapper of a tomato can 
and set it like a fez on his head. He screwed his 
face into a wizened little old man expression. His 
hands became paws. His shoulders stooped and he 
leaped on the swing and crouched there, chattering 
his teeth and making faces at his astonished 
Counselor. 


80 


WHOOPEE! 


But for the silver scapular medal under the animal 
impersonator’s chin, Brother Nicholas would have 
had instant recollections of his last visit to the 
Monkey House in the Washington Zoo. 

“See, Brother, Wish doesn’t know how to scratch 
right at all. See, Brother.” 

The Director of Camp Dramatics burst out 
laughing and capitulated: 

“All right, Sonny. If that’s your ambition, you 
win the part. You’re Baby Monkey to-night. Tell 
Wish I want to see him. 

“Don’t bother me now or I’ll reconsider my 
decision.” 

Sonny Socolow hopped down and began singing 
“Columbus, O Camp Columbus” at the top of his 
rather high-pitched voice, as he raced out to find and 
gloatingly inform Wish Craig. 

He almost knocked over Shorty Howard and 
Bernie Ball as they were coming into the Pavilion: 
their arms laden with the freshly-printed signs for 
each “artificial animal” cage. 

“How many have you finished?” demanded the 
Director, cutting short the verbal debate going on 
outside the Pavilion entrance. 

“All ten, Brother,” called Ball, “and they’re 
beauts. Wish got all the plurals right this time, 
too. For he only spelt them each one in the 
singular.” 

“Aw!” exclaimed Howard, loyally defending his 
chum’s orthography, “who expects a fellow to spell 
in the summer time, when they haven’t got but one 
dictionary in the whole camp. Half the fellows 
would not have known about those old plurals on the 
announcement, if Brother Eusebius hadn’t been so 


THE ALL-STAR ZOO 


81 


learned and told them, when he came to open the 
Canteen.” 

“Get the pins, Shorty, out of my sailor cap over 
there by the extra burlap, and help me place these 
over each cage. The Giraffe and Camel signs at tbe 
further end and Bears and Baby Monkey here. 
Work fast now. Remember, we start dressing 
promptly after supper. If you animals are late. I’ll 
go out on ‘Columbus Avenue’ and easily get others, 

“By the way. Sonny will be the Baby Monkey in 
place of Wish Craig. He’ll be a bear and that’s 
enough.” 

“Gee Whizzers! Wish will be sore,” said Bernie, 

“He’ll spoil that Baltimore Baby Monkey, you 
watch and see if he don’t,” predicted Shorty gloomily, 
as he straightened the strip “BORNEO IN CAP¬ 
TIVITY” so that it was in line under “THE ONLY 
BABY MONKEY.” 

But Brother Nicholas was not listening. He had 
gone into the combined property and dressing room, 
off the Pavilion stage, where the grotesque papier- 
mache heads of the animals lay like the remains of 
giant slaughtered beasts, on property trunks and 
chairs. 

This room it was the noisy “animals” of the eve¬ 
ning invaded when supper was over. 

Long before the Grand Opening Parade was 
scheduled to start, the rest of the camp carried their 
Mess Hall chairs into the open Pavilion. Here they 
amused themselves by buying out the Canteen and 
imitating the sounds of the various animals of the 
evening. 

Finally, Brother Nicholas sent Jerry Healy out 
to the piano, and when that young musician struck 


82 


iWHOOPEE! 


the opening chords of the Camp Song, all the shrill 
voices merged into the swelling chorus: 

“Columbus, O Camp Columbus, 

You’re the best of camps around. 

Columbus, O Camp Columbus, 

May your praise always resound.” 

Faintly audible was Healy’s accompaniment. 

“Columbus, and if we live well. 

That’s the camp we’ll love the best. 

Singing, with hearts a-ringing. 

Oh! Camp Columbus, you’re the best!” 

This ended literally “on high.” Then the flashing 
on of the footlights, which were strung overhead, 
brought a mighty cheer of anticipatory delight. 

The curtains were pulled aside, disclosing the ring 
with its hoops and tables and boxes, and in a semi¬ 
circle beyond, the blanket-walled straw-bottomed 
cages, in which the educated animals were to be 
confined awaiting their turn. 

The One Man Orchestra struck up a Grand March, 
and first appeared Red Cooper, his fierce black 
mustaches affording a pleasing study in contrast 
with the flaming head of hair that furnished his 
nickname. 

Following the Ring Master, or Animal Trainer— 
the program not stating—came the one-part and 
two-part animals with their enormous heads. Some 
skipped. Some walked like criminals. Some rolled 
in sailor style. Some waddled. And the tame 
artificial bears skated. 

It was noted that the “Seal with the Educated 


THE ALL-STAR ZOO 


83 


Tale’’ took mincing steps on that learned appendage 
after the manner of high class Chinese ladies. 

When bears, twin elephants, camel, baby monkey, 
cats, parrots, buzzards, and gawky giraffe were 
facing front, the Ring Master turned his fierce 
mustaches toward the audience and flourishing a 
brace of starting-pistols, began in a deep unnatural 
voice: 

“Non-ladies and gentlemen.” Then he reassured 
the timid among the audience that this “most fierce 
collection of beasts ever assembled under one manage¬ 
ment” were, owing to the extraordinary precautions 
taken by the management, absolutely as harmless 
as “Ferd” and “Isabella,” “who are now, as guests 
of the management, seated in Brother Christopher’s 
lap to see the show.” 

The Ring Master faced about to say in his natural 
tones: 

“Salute the fellows, and make it snappy!” 

The “artificial animals” bowed and bowed. One 
of the more affectionate of “the tame wild beares” 
varied the salute by throwing kisses with shaggy 
paws, till he slipped on a treacherous skate and sat 
back, bringing the blind after-section of the nearby 
camel down on top of him. There was a ripping 
sound in the cottony “skin” of the gaunt camel, 
and the head of Fats Doran suddenly appeared in 
the place of the hump. The indignant, though some¬ 
what muffled voice of Legs Lanciano issued from the 
head of the camel, and that extraordinary animal, 
in two distinct pieces, walked off stage for repairs, 
while the Pavilion rocked with delight. 

When the other animals were fastened in their 
various cages with chains that looked suspiciously 


84 


WHOOPEE! 


like neckties, Red Cooper picked up a canoe paddle 
and ordered out the bears. 

These roller-skated around and around till every- 
body grew dizzy and finally the two bears did like¬ 
wise. 

“The Seal with the Educated Tale” proved him¬ 
self able to flap that section of his anatomy in an¬ 
swer to such personal mathematical questions from 
Red Cooper and the audience as “How old is Babe 
Cronk.^” “How many letters in ‘Hot Dog’.?^” 
“How many hairs on Brother Eusebius’ head.?” 
(This answer did not require much flapping.) And 
“How many ice-cream cones would you like to eat?” 

In answering this last question, that Brother 
Christopher had asked from his front seat, the strap 
holding the seal’s natural legs together broke, and 
the seal was able to walk like a mathematical prodigy 
back to his cage. 

“The Twin Elephants” next showed, for elephants, 
a truly remarkable knowledge of baseball, till one 
twin dropped a ball and “The Baby Monkey” 
perched in his ring, sang out, “He’s up! He’s up! 
Hfe’s up in the air! He’s up!” 

The Pavilion instantly joined in the chorus. 

From one of the papier-mache elephant heads, in 
the voice of Tubby Thompson, came the threat of 
dire penalties in “Swampoodle Inn” that very eve- 
ning. 

“The Singing Camel”—both sections working like 
a discouraged, rusty concertina—came on for its or 
their turn, and in voices almost human sang a sad, 
sad appeal to their “Mammy.” They would have 
followed that with a ballad that had to do with “two 
hearts of gold,” only the Ring Master ordered the 


THE ALL-STAR ZOO 


8o 


\ 

lights to be put out for the next act: ‘‘The Blinking 
Buzzards” in their highly original dance. 

Then Red Cooper had to forcibly push the sing¬ 
ing camel out of the ring. From the camel’s dual 
remarks, the audience might reasonably gather that 
both of its feelings were-hurt. 

When the Pavilion was in darkness, and the 
audienice craned its neck and held its breath, “The 
Buzzards,” that had roosted dreamily all evening, 
flopped down from their chairs, and small electric 
eyes in their head pieces winked and blinked most 
roguishly. The two birds gave a fairly accurate 
imitation of an Indian war dance. This seemed more 
realistic when “The Blinking Buzzards” concluded 
their turn with a Sioux war cry and a couple of 
“Whoopees.” 

“The Parrot That Talked Sense” must have ex¬ 
perienced an attack of stage-fright, or jungle fever. 
Anyway, under cover of the darkness of “The Blink¬ 
ing Buzzards” dance, he quietly folded his green 
wings and took his beak off stage. 

Red Cooper announced the discovery of this deser¬ 
tion by declaring in his natural voice: 

“I knew Bernie Ball would get cold feet.” 

“The Boxing Cats,” aided by a “Tame Wild 
Bear” in one comer and an officious “Baby Monkey” 
in the other, put on the gloves and demonstrated 
they were rather evenly matched in a lack of pu¬ 
gilistic science. 

This bout came to an abrupt end, when in th^ 
second round, “Tap” knocked “Rap’s” cat-head 
completely off and disclosed to public scorn the 
perspiring countenance of Elmo Ranier. 

Next “The Hungry Giraffe” sat awkwardly at a 


86 


WHOOPEE! 


table in tbe center of the ring and proved its goat¬ 
like abilities. 

It let the Ring Master feed into its papier-mache 
mouth, straw, apples whole, caps from the audience, 
and the placid “Ferdinand.” 

The indignant “Isabella” developed mulish traits 
at the prospect of being swallowed alive and was 
restored with bushy tail to the lap of the Camp 
Director. 

The Ring Master remarking: 

“I’ll say that cat’s got toe nails! Will you look 
at this scratch!” 

Then through the giraffe’s mouth appeared a small 
sunburnt Imnd, that waved playfully at the audience, 
and it grasped the end of a rolled blanket. And that 
bed cover started to disappear down the mouth and 
brown spotted neck of the famished beast. 

Finally, the blanket hid completely. 

Now appeared symptoms of acute indigestion in 
the giraffe. Cries of “Get the Camp Mother,” 
“Call the Doctor,” “Hire a Hospital,” assisted this 
acting. But after violent kicking, the “Hungry 
Giraffe” and its last meal died, and both were carried 
off stage by barelegged attendants. 

“The Baby Monkey” was called to begin his 
monkey shines. He discovered his tail had been 
securely tied to the swing on which he perched. 

With an uncanny intuition for the truth in one so 
young, “The Baby Monkey” promptly blamed this 
base act on the nearest “Tame Wild Bear.” And 
in a most; angry voice, cried: 

“You think you are smart, don’t you. Wish 
Craig?” 

Then to the Ring Master: 


THE ALL-STAR ZOO 


87 


‘‘I can’t get down, Red. That Wish—” 

Sonny, burning to shine as a monkey, let his disap¬ 
pointment get the better of his temper and swung 
an angry paw on the unprepared bear. 

Something ripped and Wish caught in a most 
bear-like hug “The Baby Monkey” as he fell for¬ 
ward. 

War in the artificial animal world was about to 
break out, when the big Camp Director, spilling the 
sleeping Canteen kittens out of his lap, jumped up 
and looked at the sparring pair. 

Both the tailless “Baby Monkey” and the shaggy 
“Bear” decided to postpone hostilities indefinitely. 

Brother Christopher turned to the audience and 
announced: 

“And this concludes this evening’s excellent per¬ 
formance. Now, I was informed a few minutes ago 
that something of a cherry custard and strawberry 
flavor is melting fast on the Mess Hall tables.” 

He was not obliged to be more explicit, for ice 
cream at night has a peculiar charm for real camp 
boys, and even for “artificial animals.” 


CHAPTER IX 


THE FEAR OF FAMINE 

T he breakfast gong was two minutes late when 
Wish Craig and Shorty Howard came up 
‘‘Columbus Avenue” to learn the reason why. 

Already a small group of campers were waiting, 
like early fans outside the ticket office of a League 
Park, before the Mess Hall doo*rs. And they 
watched with serious eyes the camp flock of guinea 
fowl and half-grown turkeys, that spread out in 
open formation across the tennis courts. 

Wish pushed his way through the bread line and 
flattening his badly-burnt nose against the screen 
dining-room door, began: 

“O Shorty! I see breakfast. Whoopee 1 We’re 
going to have cups and saucers and white plates and 
look at the putrid silver—a knife and a fork and a 
spoon each! Gee Whizzers! There’s a salt cellar 
and a pepper attic and a—” 

Shorty Howard cut him off disgustedly: 

“It’s Friday, too, and I’m always hungry this 
day of the week.” 

He caught sight of Sonny Socolow in the rapidly- 
forming crowd of would-be breakfasters, and he 
remarked: 

“Are you as hungry as I am. Sonny?” 

Socolow sneered: 


88 


THE FEAR OF FAMINE 


89 


“Do I look like a wolf!” 

Howard shot back sweetly: 

“Indeed, no: lambkin. Only like a baby cub 
monkey.” 

Further exchange of animal resemblances were 
cut short by the belated appearance of the Camp 
Director. He struck the gong outside “Office 
Inn” the welcome taps, and, ere the echoes returned 
from the Chapel overhead, the Mess Hall doors were 
threatened with structural disaster. 

It may be just as well to put down here that Wish 
and Shorty and Sonny, plus the rest of “Swam- 
POODLE Inn,” managed to dispose of a substantial 
breakfast, and this despite the well-known limita¬ 
tions of Friday, 

Before Inspection, while cots were being made, 
Legs took his turn at sweeping “Swampoodle Inn” 
out. He discoursed on the important work of the 
morning: 

“Keep away from that basket. Tubby Thompson. 
Do you want to be nipped like Sonny was yesterday ? 
TTiey’ll poison you. I tell you.” 

“Crabs can’t poison you that way. That’s all 
you know.^’ exclaimed Tubby. But, nevertheless, 
he backed prudently away from the tall peach basket 
that was housing yesterday afternoon’s catch of 
hard shell crabs. “But I guess they will smother 
to death right after we do, if you raise any more 
dust in this shack.” 

“Well, they’d bite you, then. Crabs like fat,” 
defended Lanciano, sweeping in a cloud of dust the 
debris of the last twenty-four hours toward the 
“Inn’s” screen door, that Sonny held open. 

“Maybe, Legs means the crabs would get sick to 


WHOOPEE! 


m 

their tummy like, if they did nip Tubby,” offered 
Wish, patting his pillow into plump shape. “I knew 
a crab once-t—” 

“They’d all die in three minutes in immortal agony, 
if they ever sunk their teeth into Tubby,” claimed 
Sonny Socolow, and then he fled shrieking across 
newly-made cots into the broom and arms of Legs 
Lanciano. 

The sudden impact pushed Lanciano backward and 
his bare leg brushed the crab basket. 

Next second, the question as to the poisoning 
qualities in crabs’ claws seemed to be on the verge of 
solution. 

For Legs, with a wild yell, dropped his broom and 
fell forward into the dust on top of Sonny. Quite 
forgetful of his role of involuntary protector, 
Lanciano began to rub vigorously that part of his 
sunburnt limb where a pair of powerful claws had 
closed. 

The Counselor dropped in by accident, and he 
soon had quiet and order. So that, ten minutes 
afterward, when the Camp Director made his daily 
rounds, he was able to give “Swampoodle Inn,” 
with a clean conscience, a perfect mark of ten points. 

When the “Inspection Over” signal released Camp 
Columbus to morning activities. Legs, limping 
slightly, led his “Inn” mates to the open fire places. 

H'e carried most respectfully before him, the con¬ 
verted peach basket, from various chinks of which, 
waved the pathetically protruding claws of the 
victims. 

These fire places are in the open between the camp 
flag pole and the Bay side of the Mess Hall. Here 
the Thompson twins. Boy Scouts and experienced 


THE FEAR OF FAMINE 


91 


camp cooks, soon had well under way, the pleasant 
task of transforming live crabs into eatable ones. 

Elmo Ranier arrived late on the scene, but his 
khaki shirt-front bulged with apples. 

He explained in answer to Sonny’s openly-ex¬ 
pressed doubt: 

“The nice lady in the white farmhouse, down by 
the State Road, said the camp boys could have all 
the apples they found on the ground. And it was a 
mighty lucky thing I thought of them, for just as I 
strolled over to the orchard, one of the lady’s gray 
kittens spotted “Shep.” 

“You just ought to see that cat chase the old 
collie! He flew mewing like the dickens up in the 
best apple tree. Whoopee! You should have seen 
that dog take that tree on high. Sonny! And the 
kitten jumped up and jumped up, barking its old 
head off.” 

“What!” screamed Sonny, as he caught neatly an 
apple, the color of hope, and transferred it to his 
mouth in one motion. 

“Then give me back that apple,” asserted Elmo 
with a grin. 

“Go on, you little George Washington,” said 
Sonny, “are you sure these apples weren’t growing 
on a cherry tree too.?” 

“Well, anyway, I found about a barrel of good 
apples down there on the ground. You fellows want 
any more, or shall I throw them in to the crabs.?” 

“Don’t!” hastily objected Sonny, “Are you crazy 
too.?” 

The khaki shirt of Ranier resumed its normally 
slim waist-line, and apples, the dangerous color, went 
the rounds. 


92 


WHOOPEE! 


Teddy Thompson, who had appointed himself 
crab chef-in-'chief, yelled in dismay: 

«We’re all out of salt! I told you, Legs, to get 
more at breakfast. And if we don’t get any more, 
we won’t have a thing to eat 1” 

Sonny Socolow stopped biting into the depths of 
his third apple to look his blue-eyed horror. 

But a happy thought was born to Wish. 

“I’ll get you the old salt, and some pepper, too. 
You wait and see if I don’t.” 

He raced back the length of “Columbus Avenue” 
and dove into empty “Swampoodle Inn.” Standing 
on Tubby’s cot, he tried in vain to reach down his 
suitcase, stored in the rafters. 

But it was too high and he had to yell: 

“Hey, Legs! Hey, you Human Stepladderl” 

When that lanky chum appeared, he used his 
superior height to dislodge the suitcase. 

Then Wish ordered Lanciano to get out, and when 
he had the sunny bungalow to himself again, he 
delved into the bottom of his suitcase and resurrected 
from under the security of a new khaki suit, a black 
cigar, that had recently come from the private stock 
of the President of the United States. 

Wish looked at the golden band, and then he 
'nodded his head: 

“If Cookie is worth his salt, I get some.” 

Armed with the lone black cigar, Wish ran to the 
kitchen. He discovered the jovial, white-aproned 
camp chef standing in the doorway, watching the 
browned players on the tennis courts and listening 
to the din over on the distant diamond, where the 
“Yankees” and the “Doughboys” were literally fight¬ 
ing out a Camp League game. 


THE FEAR OF FAMINE 


93 


‘^Good morning, Mr. Cook,” began Wish promptly. 
“It’s a warm morning and I thought you’d like a 
smoke to cool off.” 

The cook looked doubtfully at the thick black 
cigar, and Wish hastened to defend its worth. 

“It’s a good ten cent cigar. A gentleman whom 
I know, gave it to me. But I want to keep my wind 
for running, and so I’d rather have you smoke it.” 

“It’s darker than the kind I usually light, but I 
hope it’s all right. Thanks, boy.” And he added 
generously: “Any time you feel you haven’t enough 
to eat, come and see me.” 

“I could use a little salt and pepper now. We’re 
cooking crabs and—” 

Cookie, who had lit his cigar, blew a blue cloud 
away and waved Wish magnanimously toward the 
interior of the camp kitchen. 

“Just the stuff, but too much,” was Tubby’s com¬ 
ment, when Wish reappeared. 

“Aren’t they cooked yet?” inquired Wish. “Gee 
Whizzers ! But I’m famished I” 

“Brother Eusebius ought to have the Canteen 
open by now,” said Elmo, reaching into his pant’s 
pocket. “How many are we?” He looked around. 
“Seven. All right, this is my treat. 

^‘Say, Sonny, run down to the Pavilion and get 
lollipops. And don’t you suck more than one, or—” 

Elmo caught Sonny by the nape of the neck. “Or 
I’ll eat all your share of the cooked crabs before I 
eat my own.” 

Sonny Socolow took the money and cried anxiously 
as he started off; 

“Honest, Elmo, I won’t touch any till I get back. 
Don’t you touch my crabs, remember. 


94 


WHOOPEE! 


“You watch and see he doesn’t, will you, Tubby, 
please?” he begged. 

“I’ll eat yours first myself, if you are not back 
here in three minutes,” threatened that Thompson 
twin. 

Sonny threw the core of his apple at a passing 
bird and then raced for the Canteen. 

While the lollipops shrunk—not from exposure to 
the direct rays of the Maryland sun—the boys as¬ 
sisted the Thompson twins in their rites, and watched 
in a fascinated semi-circle the crab water bubble. 

Then about the time the last of the lollipops—‘ 
alleged “all day suckers,”—disappeared. Wish with 
the aid of an ax and a baseball glove removed the 
lid. 

The crabs were sampled by Chefs Tubby and 
Teddy and reported cooked. 

Seated in the hot shadow of the Mess Efall, 
“SwAMPOODLE Inn” attacked ravenously the red- 
shelled food. Silence reigned for a few minutes, 
while this important business was transacted. 

“Ferdinand” and “Isabella,” far afield from their 
usual haunts, came meowing and rubbing against the 
legs of the boys. 

The Canteen kittens accepted as a matter of 
course the stray claws that were thrown at them. 

Then Elmo exclaimed: 

“I’m going to get some plums over in that lady’s 
field. She said we could. Who’s coming along?” 

“Better take ‘Shep’ along. You’ll find more on 
the ground that way,” began Sonny, too innocently. 
But Ranier reached for him and Sonny wiggled out 
of harm’s way. 


THE FEAR OF FAMINE 


95 


Shorty shouted: ‘^Get me my share and I’ll stay 
here and guard the rest of the crabs. I would not 
trust those kittens any more than I would Sonny. 
No; sit, sir! They might eat everything up before 
you fellows get back.” 

‘‘If you need any help. I’ll stay with you. Shorty,” 
offered Sonny Socolow^, anxiously, as he scowled at 
“Isabella,” w^ho was begging audibly for “more crab, 
please.” 

Socolow addressed the kitten rather illogically : 

“Yeh, you come around here because Brother 
Eusebius put you on bread and water for 48 hours, 
when you wouldn’t catch any mice for him. 

“You go back to the Canteen and catch mice, if 
you want any more crabs, you old she-cat. 

“Watch those cats, Shorty, and don’t trust either 
of them.” 

And Sonny raced to catch up with the rest, who 
were jogging across the fields toward the kind lady’s 
orchard. 

When, twenty minutes later, they returned to 
finish the rest of the crab meat, they found Shorty 
Howard at peace, with the two kittens purring in 
his lap. 

The crabs were vigorously attacked and Wish 
asked: 

“Sonny, you like ice-cream cones 

Sonny threw a plum pit at “Isabella” and nodded 
most affirmatively. 

“Then take up a collection and get seven. Here’s 
my nickel. All I got, or I’d treat.” 

Socolow obediently started to gather in five cents 
from each boy, but he was delayed while the Thomp- 


96 


WHOOPEE! 


son twins had a heated argument over their joint 
finances. Finally, Teddy paid in ten cents under 
protest. 

As Sonny trotted off, Legs Lanciano objected: 

“Don’t let that little Baltimore kid try to carry 
all of them.” 

“Aw! I won’t eat yours,” denied Sonny in scorn¬ 
ful tones. “Do you think I am a pig.^” 

“No; but you might drop some of them, and it 
would not be your own either,” Legs reminded him* 
^‘Remember last Wednesday after swim.^” 

“Then come along and bring the whole District of 
Columbia with you, if you’re so afraid,” invited 
Sonny. 

“Any of you fellows want them, can have my share 
of the crabs. I can’t eat another thing,” cried 
Lanciano generously. 

Legs and Sonny returned at almost a walk. Sonny 
with a cone in each fist: Legs with the remaining 
five grasped like a cold bouquet in his hands. 

Later, an argument arose between Elmo, Shorty, 
Legs, and Wish as to the final disposition of the last 
crab. 

The Thompson twins willingly relinquished their 
claim, while Sonny Socolow’s, like the rights of small 
nations in wartime, was openly disregarded. 

A temporary lull fell upon the wordy warfare, 
when it was seen too late that wicked “Isabella” had 
snatched the last crab and was fleeing with it under 
the raised fiooring of the Mess Hall. 

Here her brother, “Ferdinand,” took up the argu¬ 
ment, while the frantic boys lay on their stomachs 
and poked bats and sticks under the flooring and 


THE FEAR OF FAMINE 


97 


tried in vain to dislodge the crab and the meowing 
and growling Canteen kittens. 

Unsuccessful in this, the seven sought ‘‘Swam- 
POODLE Inn” and there Brother Nicholas informed 
Wish of the glad news. 

“Mail’s in, and I saw a big box in the Director’s 
office, addressed to you. Looks to me like a Victrola 
case or a young piano—” 

“Nothing so musical. Brother. That’s the fruit 
and cake Aunt Polly was going to send me. 

“Come on. Legs, and help me cart it.” 

When the “pallbearers” returned to their “Inn,” 
they were given a reverent reception. The united 
Thompson twins stood guard over the screen door 
and kept out all non-members of “Swampoodle Inn.” 

“Whoopee! Will you look at that red-haired 
cake P’ exclaimed Wish, as the tissue paper and card¬ 
board came away and revealed a rosy, frosted layer- 
cake. “Just the thing for Friday!” 

“Can I have a banana, please. Wish,” begged 
Sonny Socolow. “Please, Wish.” 

“Say ‘Mr. Craig.’ ” 

“Please, Mr. Aloysius Christopher Craig.” 

Sonny lay back on his cot with two bananas. 

The others made their choice among the oranges, 
dates, and pears that acted like a fruit-stand guard 
of honor to “the red-haired cake” in the center of 
the box Aunt Polly had sent to her famished nephew. 

“That’s a nice-looking cake. Wish. I mean, Mr. 
Craig,” observed Sonny wistfully. 

“Not till after dinner, you little cormorant,” 
objected the Counselor hastily. “I don’t want a 
death in this bungalow.” 


98 


WHOOPEE! 


‘^‘Aw!! Brother, just a tiny, double slice!” 
Sonny’s blue eyes looked on the cake hungrily. 

“Say, young fellow,” began Teddy, suddenly 
remembering it was his turn to sweep out in the 
morning. “Don’t you want us to win the Cup? 
Haven’t you any civic pride. Sonny? Pick those 
peels up and shoot them there.” 

And Teddy kicked the empty crab container to a 
central position in the aisle. 

From the other end of “Columbus Avenue” the 
gong boomed the call to dinner, and “Swampoodi^ 
Inn,” after the manner of firemen in the movies, 
came to a standing position and pushed each other 
through the door. 

Begged Sonny Socolow from the rear: 

“Step on the gas, you ice wagons. I can’t be late 
for dinner again, or the Director will do what he 
threatened last evening and tell me to go out and 
eat grass. Hurry up, I tell you.” 

And Sonny, despite the fact that he started from 
scratch, passed the Thompson twins and Shorty 
by the time he reached the Mess Hall door. 


CHAPTER X 


SHIVERS AND SCREAMS 

I T WAS still warm, though the skies had opened 
again during Benediction and permitted driving 
rain to convert Camp Columbus’ avenues into* 
fairly accurate imitations of three canals in Venice^ 
As the campers came down from the Chapel, the 
more thoughtful stopped in the shelter of the Mess 
Hall and removed their canvas shoes. Thus unen¬ 
cumbered, they waded and splashed to their various 
bungalows. 

Wish Craig complained as he dove into “Swam- 
pooDLE Inn”: 

“Gee Wliizzers! It would have been less trouble 
to have left my sneakers on and covered up my 
clothes. Now I have to change everything!” 

“Aw! It’s only water. That won’t hurt you 
any,” declared Lanciano. “But, say, I like your 
nerve. Don’t drip over my cot. Do you think I’m 
going to sit up all night to bail it out?” 

Wish backed away, and then heard an agonized 
scream from Sonny Socolow: 

“Look out with that wringing shirt! Do you 
want to tarnish it!” 

And Sonny, who might be described as being in 
the transition stage of dressing, pushed by Wish 
and grabbed the Camp Cup from its shelf of 
honor. 


99 


100 


WHOOPEE! 


Holding the trophy, as the youngest son of the 
Goddess of Liberty might hold his mother’s torch, 
he faced and admonished the others: 

“You fellows sit around and don’t guard anything. 
That’s a valuable Cup and, maybe, rain water would 
ruin it. And we only won it this morning, too!” 

^‘We!” yelled the Thompson twins. 

*‘We!” echoed the four Washington boys. 

“Well, I made some of the points, didn’t I 
got three for jumping off the spring-board into deep 
water for the first time, didn’t I.^ I got second 
in the Junior 50, didn’t I.? And I came third 
in the Swan Dive last Friday, didn’t I? Didn’t 

ipj5 

“Yes; and that’s all you did for the bungalow,” 
remembered Shorty. “You were second in that 50 
because Bernie Ball was disqualified, and I don’t 
think Brother Nicholas was watching that Swan 
Dive closely. Collins and Healy and about ten 
seemed better than you—” 

“Aw!” said Sonny, reverently lifting the Cup, 
while he straightened the Mount St. Joseph and Gon- 
zaga College pennants that hung before it, “listen to 
what’s talking! If it wasn’t for those twenty-five 
points the Camp Director awarded Wish for saving 
you, our ‘Inn’ would have been beaten out by ‘Stag¬ 
ger Inn.’ They were only nineteen points behind 
us.” 

He added frankly: 

“I don’t know why Wish wanted to rescue you, 
Shorty.” 

“You may learn shortly in Purgatory, my 
Sonny,” growled Howard, as, clad in a dry camp 
uniform, he lay back comfy on his cot. 


SHIVEHS AND SCREAMS 


101 


The night was coming down fast, and the Camp 
Cup gleamed in the gloom. 

“I hope it clears for Tuesday’s hike,” said Teddy 
Thompson. “I don’t want to hike in a bathing suit 
through all the red mud they got down here in St. 
Mary’s County.” 

“Wonder where our Counselor will take us this 
time?” asked his twin from the next cot. 

“He was saying this morning after Mass, to Rip 
Gut Hill and Newtown Neck, maybe.” 

“That sounds drippy, Elmo,” remarked Legs. “I 
can almost see the red drops drip, drip, drip.” 

“Don’t,” cried Sonny, “I want to sleep to-night.” 

“Why don’t you start now? Does Mamma’s Pre¬ 
cious want to be tucked in?” 

“You just try, you big Baby Elephant.” 

“Why did they call it that?” inquired Shorty. 

“I know,” volunteered Wish. “I heard the Chap¬ 
lain telling the fellows in ‘Never Inn’ the last 
time it rained the other night. 

“Father McEntee said, once-t a man”—Wish 
noticed the attentive-eyed Sonny Socolow, and he 
added the detail—“on just such a dark and stormy 
Sunday night as this, waited for another man with 
a butcher’s knife. A new, sharp, size 12 one, too. 
And he met him at the top of that dark hill, and—” 

“Now you cut that out. Wish Craig. I’m going 
to sleep to-night.” 

“Run down to the Pavilion and play ‘Shark Tag’ 
with the kittens. Sonny.” 

“There’s another spooky place around here. I 
heard that plump pitcher of the Leonardtown altar 
boys we beat yesterday morning, telling about it 
after the game, when we were in swimming with 


102 


WHOOPEE! 


them,’^ offered Shorty. ‘‘It’s called ‘Moll Dyer 
Run.’ ” 

“You mean that old spooky farmhouse down the 
State Road by Red Gate, where all those queer 
things happened to the tenants, after that old Mrs. 
Dyer put a curse on the whole works.?” asked Lan- 
-ciano. 

“Yes; that’s it. Brother Celsus’ crowd in “Sail 
Inn” were dead tired, but they hiked two miles 
further a couple of weeks ago, so as not to have to 
^leep near the farm. A miser man long ago got the 
farm. He foreclosed the mortgage or something 
^n Mrs. Moll Dj^er and she didn’t like it worth a 
^ent. So she cursed—” 

“What!” cried Sonny, despite his fears. 

“Well, after that, the miser was found horribly 
dead and no one ever knew what happened to him, 
except that he was dead. And the next farmer who 
rented the place, was shot hunting foxes, and the 
next farmer fell out of a, or into a silo—I forget 
just how you get killed on those hick things— 
Anyway, it did not do him much good, and they had 
to bury him. And the next farmer’s wife hung her¬ 
self in the kitchen, and, the day of her funeral, her 
husband got drowned dead in the run. His horse 
went there for a drink and slipped. And the next 
tenant—I, I forget what that Leonardtown altar 
boy said—but they had to dig a grave for him, too. 
And now it is as hard as the deuce to get anybody 
to take the farm.” 

“Is that where the Counselor is going to have us 
hike and sleep all night ?” demanded Sonny, with blue 
fire in his eyes. “I am going to stay in camp and 
guard the Camp Cup, I am.” 


SHIVERS AND SCREAMS 


103 


“Maybe, we’ll hike to Gibbet Hill. That’s not so 
far,” said Teddy Thompson. “Brother Eusebius in 
Welcome Inn’ took his bungalow on a hike there 
last month, and they all came back safe and 
hungry as anything, except Pete Gibson, who did the 
cooking, and he cut himself in a different place each 
meal.” 

“What’s ‘Gibbet’ mean.?*^” insisted Sonny suspi¬ 
ciously. “Any of you fellows know that much.?^” 

“Gibbet? That’s an upright timber with a cross¬ 
piece at its upper end.” Wish furnished this bit 
of information, and added: “The Sister who taught 
me in the Eighth Grade last year made me look the 
definition up in a dictionary once-t, because—” 

“How do you spell the plural? I bet that’s why 
she made you look it up,” observed Tubby from the 
gloom of the bungalow. 

Sonny had been thinking and he said: 

“‘A crosspiece at its upper end,’ hey? Do you 
mean where they hang people?” 

“Yes; until they are dead from the neck both 
ways, up and down,” said Legs. 

“No: I don’t know if any one swung for a crime 
at Gibbet Hill, but the Director was saying out in 
the motor boat the last moonlight sail we had, that 
that was the place where they kept the colored man 
in the iron cage till he died.” 

“What cage?” From Sonny in a horrified 
whisper. 

“Till he died,” continued Wish. “The Director 
said way back in the eighteenth century, before you 
Were even born. Sonny, there was a colored man and 
he had four troublesome children, like you. Sonny.” 

“Go on. Never mind the comparisons,” com- 


104 


WHOOPEE! 


manded Socolow, camping on the end of Wish’s cot 
to hear better. 

“And his wife had an awful sharp tongue, and one 
night—^just like this when the rain was coming down 
dismally and the wind was whistling mournfully, that 
colored man got a knife from the kitchen table, a 
sharp one too, and waited till his wife and seven 
children—” 

“You said four before,” corrected Shorty and 
Sonny in one breath. 

“His wife and eleven children were sleeping 
soundly. Then he clutched that butcher’s knife and 
he got out of bed in the dark, this way, and he put 
one foot in front of the other, like this, and he 
came—” 

“Now you cut that out. Wish Craig. I got to 
sleep in this county to-night,”demanded Sonny Soc¬ 
olow. “I want to get my growth.” 

“Who’s being deprived of his growth in ‘Swam- 

POODLE Inn’.P” 

Sonny was not the only boy that jumped at the 
question that came through the screen door. But 
Wish was the first to recognize the Chaplain’s voice. 

“O Father, come in. Come in.” 

Father McEntee entered the dark bungalow and 
swept the interior with his pocket flash, disclosing 
the seven sprawled back on their cots, 

“So certain pussy-cats are not out this weather.^ 
Afraid they’ll get their paws wet, hey 

Then the Chaplain fixed his cone of light on the 
graceful silver Camp Cup. 

“We won the Cup tlus week. Want to see it, 
B r other 


SHIVERS AND SCREAMS 


105 


“What’s that, Percy?” asked Father McEntee, 
deliberately misnaming the speaker. 

“I mean, Father.” 

“Yes; Wish. I do. Congratulations everybody. 
I was going down to the radio concert in the Pavil¬ 
ion, but I thought I’d pay a state visit to this week’s 
Cup winners first. ‘Words are not good unless 
backed up by deeds’, so—” 

The Chaplain walked up the bungalow aisle and 
dropped several packages of chewing gum and “Life 
Savers” into the Camp Cup. 

“Thank you. Brother. I mean, Father. Thank 
you,” said Legs, speaking for his “Inn.” 

And Sonny added: 

“Whoopee! This is good. I haven’t had a thing 
to eat since supper. And Wish was telling about 
Gibbet Hill, and that would make any man hungry.” 

“Wish was telling us. Father, some crazy wild 
yarn about a colored man,” explained Tubby Thomp¬ 
son, taking the priest’s raincoat and motioning his 
twin to shove over and let the Chaplain sit on the 
edge of the cot. 

“Oh! I was just telling a Bedtime Story to the 
little child we have in this ‘Inn,’ Father. Trying to 
get it to go bye-bye.” 

Wish turned to Sonny and spoke in tender tones: 
“And after that. Sonny, the people took that bad 
colored man, who had made himself a childless wid¬ 
ower that dark rainy night. They decided hanging 
was too easy, so they built a strong cage without a 
door, and they put him inside. They left him out¬ 
doors on top of that hill. And he lived more or less 
happy there forever afterward. 


106 


WHOOPEE! 


“They say you can still hear him yelling for eats 
on a dark night, but I don’t believe superstitions, 
Father,” finished Wish Craig virtuously. 

“But what did they want to go and call it Gibbet 
Hill? Why didn’t they name that hill. Famine 
Heights or Hungry Hill or some name you could 
sleep better after hearing? 

“Say, who named the places around Leonard- 
town anyway? Rip Gut Hill and Newtown Neck, 
and Moll Dyer Run and Red Gate, and Gibbet 
Hill?” 

Sonny Socolow’s complaint remained unanswered. 

Three boys tumbled in uninvited, and as Father 
McEntee switched his flash on them, he disclosed the 
sunburnt features of Bemie Ball, Tom Smith and 
Dick Garver. 

“May we listen to the ghost stories, too? There 
won’t be much radio to-night. They didn’t even get 
half of the baseball scores,” said Smithy, settling 
himself comfortably against Ranier’s legs. “Too 
much static.” 

Dick explained: 

“I was just down to the Pavilion.—^Move over half 
a foot, can’t you. Shorty?—and Brother Nemesion 
was monkeying with those door-knobs. It sounded 
like we were listening in on a dog fight. Once I saw 
five dogs in Norfolk having it out to a decision, and 
the radio didn’t sound much better.” 

“Forget the dogs in your home town and let 
Father go on with a ghost story,” commanded Elmo. 
“You tell one. Father, please.” 

“Make it a true one. Not like Wishes fish tales,” 
suggested Sonny. 

“Isn’t it asleep yet?” asked Wish solicitously. 


SHIVERS AND SCREAMS 


107 


The Chaplain looked around at the eager faces in 
the darkened “Swampoodle Inn.” 

‘‘Well, I don’t believe in ghosts to begin with. If 
there were such gray persons about, they could only 
come from three places—” 

“I know one place, graveyards. The colored 
man, who—” offered Sonny. Three hands reached 
out of the dark and Sonny choked. 

“Never mind it. Father. We often have this 
trouble getting it to sleep at nights,” said Tubby. 
“Sometimes, I have to walk the floor with it for hours 
and hours—” 

“You just try it once-t, and you won’t walk for 
weeks, you big—” 

But the Chaplain cut the rest of Socolow’s threat 
short. 

“No; Sonny. Graveyards are harmless. But I 
don’t see what reason this bungalow of Daily Com¬ 
municants should have to be afraid of ghosts. They 
could only possibly be ‘ghosts’ of Heaven, and who 
would be afraid of one of the radiant Blessed: your 
Guardian Angel, or St. Tarcisius, Pancratius, or 
little Stanislaus.^ Or ‘ghosts’ of Purgatory, and 
what harm would one of the Holy Souls do any of 
you if it came begging your prayers Or ‘ghosts’ 
from the basement place, and—if God permitted such 
to materialize—-why! a Sign of the Cross would finish 
any of that last class.” 

Father McEntee paused as though he were gath¬ 
ering his thoughts, and the boys chewed gum in silent 
attention. 

Outside in the camp street it rained industriously 
and there came from the Pavilion the sounds of 
noisy revelry. 


108 


WHOOPEE! 


“Maybe, you campers never heard of the—call it 
curious—affair that happened to me one night last 
summer in The Residence at Newtown.” 

“That’s a better name for a place than those 
others,” exclaimed Sonny in relief. 

“You keep quiet, Sonny,” demanded Legs and the 
Thompsons twins in unison. “That’s right. Sit 
on him again. Smithy.” 

“When you go on your canoe trips down Breton 
Bay and come abreast of New'town Neck, you must 
have noticed the red brick building, that since Colo¬ 
nial days has been called ‘The Residence’ in the neigh¬ 
borhood. 

“I was pastor there last year, and one Saturday 
when I drove out from town, I learnt from the sexton 
that an old colored man^—‘Uncle Corn’ everybody in 
the parish called him—^was quite sick and wanted to 
see the priest. 

“We were getting ready for the Church Festival 
at the time and I was kept busy with Committee 
meetings. Confessions, one thing or another up till 
bedtime. 

“There is a high-ceilinged bedroom in The Res¬ 
idence, in which the priest from Leonardtown sleeps 
every Saturday night. From its southern wdndow 
there is a fine view of the lower Breton Bay and a 
stretch of the four-mile-wide Potomac. 

“I was standing at that window of the priest’s 
room, admiring the moonlight scene of still woods 
and silvered waters, when I thought I heard these 
words, ‘Go to Uncle Corn.’ Naturally, I turned 
away from the window to glance around my bedroom. 
The moonlight, streaming in, illuminated every ar¬ 
ticle of furniture and fairly shone on the white 


SHIVERS AND SCREAMS 


109 


counterpane that spread over the old Colonial bed¬ 
stead. 

“Thinking I had spoken some half-conscious 
thought aloud, I said to myself: T’ll go to him be¬ 
tween the two Masses in the morning. The sexton 
said there was no immediate danger.’ Thus re¬ 
assured, I commenced to undress. 

“I must have fallen asleep, sitting there on the 
side of the great bed, when again I thought I heard 
that same command in that still room. 

“That woke me enough to finish undressing and I 
turned in, thinking if I were beginning to hear voices, 
it was high time I had some rest. 

“I had been sleeping soundly, when on the back- 
board of the bed, almost directly over my head, I 
heard. . . 

“Ouch! What’s thatsuddenly screamed Sonny, 
springing up with such energy that Smithy was flung 
aside like a blanket. 

“SwAMPOOBLE Inn” rose with Sonny Socolow. 

Father McEntee clicked on his flash and in the 
cone of yellow light, the boys saw “Isabella” blinking 
up at them from under Sonny’s cot. 

“That darn old she-cat! Who brought her in? 
I bet you did. Ball. What did she want to brush 
against my hand for, then?” exclaimed Sonny, as 
Tubby reached and lifted the Canteen kitten to his 
breast. 

“Gee Whizzers! Sonny, cut out imagining things 
and let Father finish.” 

“Imagining, hey!” 

^‘Go on. Father, please,” Wish pleaded. 

“Well, as I was saying, almost directly over my 
head, I heard . . . .” 


no 


WHOOPEE! 


The Chaplain stopped and then he rapped lightly 
©n the side of the cot thrice. 

‘‘I sat up in bed, wide awake, and as clearly as I 
am listening to my own voice this moment, that order 
was given for the third time that night, ‘Go to Uncle 
Com.’ 

“I didn’t feel sleepy. So I went down the creaky 
old stairway and over to St. Francis Xavier’s 
Church to get the oils and the Blessed Sacrament. 

“Then I backed my little runabout out into the 
white road and ten minutes later I was before Uncle 
Corn’s little unpainted shack, that overlooks St. 
Clement Bay. 

“There was a feeble light burning in the window 
and a shadow moved across the pane as I shut off the 
gas and parked on the edge of a gleaming tobacco 
field. 

“Uncle Corn’s granddaughter opened the door, a 
blessed candle in her hand, and she told me her 
grandfather had kept saying all evening that the 
priest would surely come soon. 

“I found Uncle Corn lying in the comer and on a 
little stand everything was prepared. He was quite 
weak, but perfectly conscious. And he received the 
three sacraments most devoutly. 

“I bade him good night and a sleepy kinky-haired 
greatgrandson of Uncle Com escorted me back to 
the Dodge. I was just beginning to feel that I had 
been hasty, not waiting till the morning, when the 
gi-anddaughter called me from the doorway. 

“I went back, and then I realized as clearly as it 
is given to us to realize any strange thing in this 
world, why they call Our Master ‘the Good Shep¬ 
herd.’ ” 


SHIVERS AND SCREAMS 


111 


Father McEntee looked around at the tense faces. 

^‘Uncle Corn’s head had fallen back on the pillow, 
and he w^as quite dead.” 

“Is that all?” 

“That’s all for this Sunday night, Wish. And 
it must be nearly time for night prayers in this 
camp. It’s stopped raining and I had better go 
back to my Leonardtown home, otherwise, I’ll never 
be here in time to let you serve the Camp Mass at 
seven to-morrow.” 

“But I want to know—” began Sonny Socolow, 
^‘why the people called him ‘Uncle Corn’?” 

“Sleep over it,” commanded Legs as he helped the 
Chaplain into his raincoat. 

“That’s just it,” complained Sonny, “I’ll make 
a firm resolution to, but, I bet, I can’t.” 


CHAPTER XI 


THE CHICKEN THAT HIKED HOME 

B rother Nicholas and his hikers, as they 
took the long hot hill that leads into Leonard- 
town, swung into the Camp Columbus Marching 
Song. 

“As we go marching.” 

Sonny Socolow, struggling along in the rear, 
stretched his short legs in a vain attempt to keep 
some step with Lanciano’s strides. 

“And the band begins to P-L-A-Y.” 

Tubby and his twin, with cooking utensils at¬ 
tached to their persons, rattled not unmusically. 
“You can hear the people shouting.” 

Shorty Howard interrupted his vocal exercise to 
yell in Ranier’s ear: 

“I sure do hope we stop for a soda, while we’re 
waiting for Wish.” 

“Camp Columbus wins to-day. Rahl Rah! 
Rah!” 

At Duke’s Store the seven hikers showed their 
catholic taste by ordering as many different kinds of 
ice cream sodas. 

At the second round—sundaes this time—Elmo 
suddenly deserted his cup to jump up and run to the 
door, shouting: 

“Hey, Father McEntee! Father Francis M. 
112 


THE CHICKEN THAT HIKED HOME 113 


McEntee, S.J. I thought that you was passing. 
Come in.” 

The Chaplain joined them at the little tables in 
the rear of Duke’s and while they consumed his treat, 
Legs Lanciano objected in a sad voice: 

“Father, you shouldn’t tell any more ghost stories, 
when our Little Boy Blue is—” 

Sonny blushed despite his tan, and attempted to 
interrupt, but Legs continued: 

“You remember last Sunday night when it rained? 
Well, after the Counselor tucked our little mascot 
into his crib and k—” 

“He did not! He never did! I’d just like to see 
him try it!” 

“Anyway, Sonny woke up about eleven and he 
thought he heard three knocks. You bet Sonny sat 
up in his cot and he looked out back of ‘Swam- 
poodIlE Inn’ and there in ^Gerard Avenue’ was 
something white and moving slowly toward him. 
That was enough for Sonny Socolow. He didn’t 
have to look three times. He says he meant to yell 
‘Ghost!’ but that was not what he hollered. For 
the little fool yelled, ‘Fire! Fire! Fire!’ 

“Whoopee! The camp poured out of their bun¬ 
galows in pajamas like they do when the gong rings 
for meals. 

“The Director and some of the Counselors came 
running with pocket flashes looking for the fire, and 
then we found our Counselor was still sleeping, 
weren’t you. Brother.^” 

“Not after you and Wish Craig finished shaking 
me,” acknowledged the big Brother. 

“Anyway, the Director told Sonny a few things in 
a nice way that didn’t put him to sleep. When 


114 


WHOOPEE! 


the camp quieted down somewhat, Brother Nicholas 
saw by Wish’s wrist watch that it was only 
11:30, so he said, ‘All down for a five-minute mid¬ 
night dip.’ ” 

“And the water was just right,” finished Sonny. 
“It was all phos-something in the dark. You know, 
like quicksilver or that ghost paint that is on Wish’s 
watch at nighttime. 

“But what was that white and moving object you 
saw. Sonny?” Father McEntee put the question. 

“You’d never guess. Brother, I mean, Father,” 
hastily corrected Shorty. “His ‘ghost’ was only one 
of the camp cows. That one with the white band, 
they call ‘Miss Nina.’ ” 

“There’s a similar innocent explanation for most 
‘ghosts.’ And that’s a good thing to remember 
next time you see one,” said the Chaplain, as they 
gathered up their blankets and stuff. Then he in¬ 
quired : 

“Are these all on this hike. Brother?” 

“No; we’re waiting for Wish, Father. I sent him 
back for something and he should be along any 
moment. If he doesn’t show up by the time we get 
to the Church grounds, he better stay and go with 
the canoe crowd Brother Christopher is piloting this 
afternoon. They are paddling to Piney Point this 
week. But we’re headed for Sotterly and a swim in 
the Patuxent.” 

“Then you must be passing St. John’s, Holly¬ 
wood.” Father McEntee fumbled in his pocket and 
finally said: 

“I’ll accompany you as far as the Rectory. I 
have two things there that may be acceptable on 
this hike.” 


THE CHICKEN THAT HIKED HOME 115 


Wish Craig appeared in the side doorway. His 
face was flushed and he was breathing heavily. He 
held, under one arm, like an unwilling football, a 
live fowl. 

“Hey, there’s a Commandment against that,” 
Sonny reminded him. 

“Doesn’t it know its, Catechism! But Baltimore 
is wrong again,” corrected Wish, as he transferred 
the chicken to Howard’s lap and ordered two ice¬ 
cream cones. 

“I’ve been a good little Samaritan. When our 
Counselor sent me back for his .38—got it parked 
right here. Brother.” Wish patted his hip pocket—■ 
“I took the short cut through the woods coming out 
of camp, and, just as I got on the State Road along 
came an old lady, driving the ruins of a Ford. I 
thought I had seen some Colonial cars, but that 
Lizzie! Whoopee! 

“The old lady had a lot of hens tied on the rear 
seat. Four of them must have been tied with 
grannies, for they flew out and scuttered for the 
woods. 

“Gee Whizzers! I was hot when I caught the 
last one, and the old lady, when she learnt I was a 
camp boy starting on a hike, insisted I take one for 
fodder. She must have known the Thompsons were 
going to cook. Anyway, here’s our little old 
dinner.” 

“Whoopee! What a whopper!” exclaimed Sonny 
Socolow suspiciously. “I’m glad I come from St. 
Bernard’s in Baltimore, where they teach the chil- 
dren^—” 

But several from St. Aloysius’, Washington, con¬ 
sidered Sonny’s words a reflection on the Capital’s 


116 


WHOOPEE! 


parochial schools, and he was the first of the party 
to leave Duke’s Store. 

The hikers marched up the shady side of Washing¬ 
ton Street. 

At the Church, they swung into the grounds and 
halted for a drink at “The Priests’ Pump,” while 
Father McEntee entered the Rectory. 

When the Camp Chaplain reappeared, he carried 
bags of peanuts. 

“These really belong to the Church Festival next 
week, but—” 

“No explanations necessary, Father,” Elmo 
assured him, “when we have twin Baby Elephants 
and a real live Baltimore Baby Monkey in this out¬ 
fit.” 

The Chaplain, producing a key and handing it to 
Brother Nicholas, explained: 

“This will unlock Carney Hall, out at Hollywood. 
You better make your bed there to-night—the floor¬ 
ing is hard and healthy—unless you prefer to sleep 
under the starry roof. I believe, it may prove 
leaky, as the weather prediction says rain.” 

“Then I make a firm resolution to sleep in that 
Carney place,” chimed in Sonny earnestly, as they 
bade their Chaplain good-by. 

Soon the boys were deep in a discussion over the 
possibilities of foxes being in the woods on the out¬ 
skirts of the town. If they were red foxes, they 
better not try and get Wish’s chicken, etc. 

Another halt was made at Leonard Hall, where the 
Camp Field Events were run off every Saturday, 
and here the hikers sampled the watermelon patch. 

Then, once again, they hit up their Marching 


THE CHICKEN THAT HIKED HOME 117 


Song and they took the hot road that led eastward 
to Hollywood, six miles away. 

An hour later, Shorty, Wish and the occasionally 
protesting cliicken, were lagging a hundred yards 
behind the dusty column and watching an approach¬ 
ing ox team and its cartload of baled tobacco. A 
series of honks made them jump to the side of the 
road. 

A very freckled boy, wearing a pair of faded blue 
overalls, no taller, no older than Sonny Socolow, 
was driving a decrepit Ford. He slowed down to 
look longingly at the pink quarter moon of water¬ 
melon that Wish still carried. 

A few yards along, the ancient machine stopped 
and when the two campers came abreast, the small 
boy asked: 

“You all from the Boys’ Camp on Breton Bay.^’^ 

“Yep, son.” 

“Know Brother Nemesion?” 

“Yep, big boy.” 

“He was my teacher at Leonard Hall last year.” 

“I thought he looked all tired out.” 

The small boy gave Wish a long look and then he 
remarked: 

“Why doesn’t he go to bed earlier.?” 

Here he first noticed the chicken under Wish’s 
arm. He demanded: 

“Did you steal that fowl.?” 

“Nope, sonny.” 

“It looks mighty like one of my Aunt Hattie 
Yowell’s. That’s why I want to know.” 

“Is your Aunt Hattie a nice old lady, who motors 
around in a crazy one horse bus like yours, with a 


118 


WHOOPEE! 


seat full of hens, and laughs a lot and does not 
know how to tie knots tight?” inquired Wish Craig. 

“If she was driving this Ford and she wore a 
linen duster coat that belongs to Uncle Norris 
Yowell, over a sort of blue dress, that’s Auntie. She 
was taking some of her hens to Leonardtown Wharf 
for the Baltimore boat.” 

“Well, four of those birds were headed for 
Virginia and all points south, when I recaptured 
them for your relative on the State Road. She 
gave me this one for catching four.” 

“I reckon you’re right, then,” said the small boy 
dubiously. 

Then his freckled face brightened. 

“Aunt Hattie Yowell’s always losing her chickens. 
A colored man helped her run down some last time 
and she only got three back.” 

The driver of the Colonial Period flivver turned 
to Shorty Howard. 

“Where are you children hiking to ?” 

“To the place where we sleep to-night. Freckles.” 

““Sotterly?” 

don’t know him.” 

“It isn’t a him, it’s an it. Hollywood?” 

“Maybe.” 

But Wish answered: “Yes. How far is it?” 

“Right smart distance down the road yet.” 

The small boy bargained: 

“I’ll give you all a lift to Hollywood for that slice 
of watermelon.” And he reached back to open the 
side door of the car. 

“That’s the first sensible sentence you’ve spoken 
since school closed,” said Wish, handing up the un¬ 
eaten portion of watermelon. 


THE CHICKEN THAT HIKED HOME 119 


“Now you take the witness’ chair, son,” began 
Wish. “Have you a name besides Freckles.^” 

“Yowell. Albert Ernest Yowell.” 

“Do you know where Carney Hall is.^” 

“That’s the old church, where I was baptized, but 
we all use it as a hall, since the new St. John’s was 
built.” 

“Yes; I rather suspected it would not be used 
much for religious purposes, since your christening,” 
observed Shorty solemnly. 

Albert Ernest Yowell looked at Shorty, then he 
resumed his eating of the watermelon. 

Wish offered: “I know how to run one of those 
buses. Suppose you become right-hand driver and 
let me step on the accelerator for a while.” 

The exchange of seats was made, Howard taking 
the protesting fowl. 

As they shot past Brother Nicholas and the others, 
Wish did let her have gas, while Shorty leaned out 
to shout gloatingly. 

Too late, the Thompson twins, Elmo, and, espe¬ 
cially, Sonny Socolow made ineffectual attempts to 
overtake the Ford. 

“Now you better let me drive. I know the ruts. 
Hollywood is just up the road,” said Albert Ernest 
Yowell, as a turn in the yellowed road brought into 
view the few houses that cluster around a general 
store. 

“We all live down the Three Notch Road about 
half a mile. I guess you camp boys are welcome to 
sleep in our barn. Another crowd did last month 
and we didn’t lose anything. So Mom won’t object. 
And Aunt Hattie Yowell will stop at our farm to¬ 
night. She’s seeing the doctor. Then she’s coming 


120 


WHOOPEE! 


out from town in Uncle Greenwell YowelPs machine. 
I went in with him this morning.” 

“No, thanks. The Counselor intends us to sleep 
at that Carney Hall.” 

“Well, then, you all go along this road to the 
right and you’ll come to the public schoolhouse 
that’s being painted gray, and after that you’ll see 
the steeple of St. John’s. You can’t miss it, ’cause 
the cross on top was struck by lightning again last 
w^eek, and instead of pointing heavenwards, it’s point¬ 
ing to the other place, till the priest gets a man to 
fix it. 

“Now right this side of St. John’s in the Old 
Cemetery is Carney Hall. You’ll know it. It needs 
painting. Good-by, you fellows.” 

“ ‘In the Old Cemetery is Carney Hall,’ ” quoted 
Wish, as Albert Ernest and his decrepit Eord disap¬ 
peared. 

“That means there is a New One near-by. I bet 
a million dollars Sonny will want to hike on to 
Baltimore when he learns that.” 

“Let’s rest under those cedars till the rest come 
along,” said Shorty, whose short legs were protesting 
against all hikes. 

They were still resting healthily when the Coun¬ 
selor and the dusty balance of “Swampoodle Inn” 
hove in sight. 

Arriving at the day’s destination, they gathered 
around the pump, back of St. John’s Church, to 
demonstrate that hiking under an August sun in 
Southern Maryland is a dry exercise. 

Sonny Socolow, who had been on a personal tour 
of inspection of the country church’s grounds, came 
running up, and, still at a distance, demanded: 


,THE CHICKEN THAT HIKED HOME 121 


‘‘Brother, where are we going to sleep to-night?’^ 

“Can I have your share of supper?” asked Wish, 
but Sonny ignoring him repeated his question. 

“In that building over there,” said the Counselor, 
indicating Carney Hall. 

“You mean there, where those old tombstones are?” 

“Yes; there in the Old Cemetery,” explained Wish 
innocently. “The New Graveyard must be in that 
field on the opposite side of the church.” 

“You mean I’m going to sleep in a lonely shack 
between the Old Cemetery and the New Cemetery?” 

Sonny Socolow had never been so serious in the 
twelve previous years of his existence. 

Then he proceeded to answer his own question. 

“It’s all right now for you fellows, but that sun 
up there is going to China in a few hours, and then 
it’s going to be night and it’s going to be dark 
night and there’s no moon to-night. 

“I’m NOT.” 

The gift chicken, which Wish had tied too loosely 
to a hitching post near-by, suddenly seemed to feel 
the force of Sonny Socolow’s argument. 

It started to cluck-cluck hysterically and struggle. 
The hungry boys jumped, forgetting a lodging for 
the night, and next moment they were all busily en¬ 
gaged in a sort of soccer game, with the freed fowl 
taking very creditably the active part of a winged 
football. 

It was Wish who violated the rules of that kind of 
football by, at last, laying violent hands on the 
“ball.” 

When enough breath had returned to the crowd 
to take a vote, it was decided unanimously, to leave 
Carney Hall unoccupied. 


122 


WHOOPEE! 


So, again, they took to the dusty highway. 

They swung into the Three Notch Road and, half 
a mile along, came to a tobacco barn by the road¬ 
side, where the stalks of the leaf hung in tiered rows, 
looking, as Wish remarked, for all the world like a 
crew of green parrots hung for piracy. 

Beyond the barn showed a farmhouse, neatly 
painted white, and a dilapidated automobile parked 
close to the porch. 

Something familiar about the octogenarian out¬ 
lines of the machine came to Wish and he cried out : 

“Whoopee! We’re in luck. That’s where that 
Yowell kid lives, or I’ll never eat any of his Aunt 
Hattie’s chicken.” 

As the boys halted under a giant oak, they saw 
Albert Ernest running toward them, and behind him 
appeared in the farm doorway, a young-looking 
white-haired old lady, who hid her hands in an 
apron. 

Yowell shouted: 

“Say, camp boys. I didn’t think you all would 
sleep in Carney Hall. My Aunt Hattie Yowell is 
here and she says she wants to see you.” He pointed 
an accusing finger at Wish Craig. 

“I told you he crooked that bird,” said Sonny 
triumphantly. 

Yowell continued: 

“She’s been telling Mom what a polite boy you 
were.” 

“Notice, fellows, he uses the past tense,” remarked 
Elmo. Then he ducked in the interests of personal 
Safety First. 

“And the barn is ready,” continued the small boy. 


THE CHICKEN THAT HIKED HOME 123 


“Clean water on the beds and fresh sheets in the 
pitcher and the floor neatly turned down—” 

But Albert Ernest hastened to explain to Wish: 

“No; she didn’t say the house, but the barn. She 
says you all can sleep in the barn, but you mustn’t 
start any cook fires near it.” 

So the fire was made in an open field one hundred 
yards from the tobacco barn. The Thompson twins 
turned cooks and the rest turned bosses. 

Wish and Sonny were detailed to buy eggs and 
milk from the farm. 

In the kitchen door was Aunt Hattie Yowell and 
when she spotted Wish, her first question was: 

“Child, have you cooked that chicken yet?” 

“Tubby is going to clean it now and—” 

“Is that fat boy a good cook?” asked the old lady 
sharply. 

“His eggs and beans, when they don’t get burnt, 
aren’t so bad.” 

“But his coffee, lady!!” This from Sonny. 

“Can he cook a chicken?” insisted Aunt Hattie 
Yowell. “I don’t like the thought of a boy spoiling 
one of those hens I raised from the egg myself.” 

“We’ll tell you better after supper. Ma’am,” said 
Wish, with a sense of loyalty to his “Inn.” 

But Aunt Hattie looked at Sonny’s dubious face. 
Then she took matters in her own hands. 

“You go right back and bring me that chicken, 
and I’ll cook it for you children. 

“This little child here looks positively starved.” 

Wish gave Sonny a long look that would have done 
credit to Albert Ernest Yowell. But words failed 
him. 


124 


WHOOPEE! 


Cook the fowl, Aunt Hattie Yowell did, to a deli¬ 
cious tantalizing brown. 

When, in the gathering dusk of the long summer 
night, Albert Ernest bore the dish to the tobacco 
barn, no one would ever think a substantial supper 
had already been disposed of. 

Gladly, Albert Ernest Yowell joined the charmed 
circle and sat tailor-style on half of Wish’s blanket 
and listened with ears that almost seemed to curve 
outward, to tales of a summer camp and the glory 
that was Baltimore’s, when it was not Washington’s. 

Finally, the Counselor gave the order to turn in, 
for there would be an early start for Sotterly and 
a swim in the morning Patuxent. 

Wish escorted Albert Ernest across the black corn¬ 
field and, the two boys heard the distant rumble of 
thunder, way to the south. 

When Wish returned, the others were blanketed 
forms. He said short night prayers and then twist¬ 
ing his rosary around his left hand, he rolled in his 
blanket and began sleepily his nightly custom of say¬ 
ing a decade for “The Boys in Purgatory.” 

But by the end of the sixth Hail Mary, Wish was 
another blanketed form in the dark tobacco barn. 

Yet Wish Craig was never to forget that August 
night. 

For in the black midnight a lantern flashed in his 
face, and with sleep heavy upon him, he began to 
realize it was raining dismally and some one was 
shaking him and sobbing: 

“Wish. Wish. Camp boy, wake up. My, my 
Aunt Hattie Yowell is dying!” 


CHAPTER XII 


ON HIS majesty’s SERVICE 

A FLASH of white lightning lit the interior of 
the dripping tobacco barn and showed Wish 
Craig the blanketed forms of his fellow hikers, sleep¬ 
ing the healthy, undisturbed sleep of the dead-tired. 
Sonny, hidden under his blanket, and curled up like 
a coil of rope, lay at his feet. Overhead, the rows 
and rows of stalks of tobacco leaf gleamed momen¬ 
tarily. 

Then again it was dark as the inside of night, 
beyond the lantern’s yellow dim. Little Albert 
Ernest was sobbing violently. 

Wish sat up. 

“My Aunt Hattie Yowell is going to die and she 
wants the priest and I got to go for the doctor over 
at Sotterly Wharf.” 

Wish was awake now and thinking fast. 

“Come on up to your farmhouse. Don’t wake the 
others yet. Come on.” 

Taking the lantern from the small boy’s hand, 
Wish plunged into the midnight storm, and together 
they slipped across the soggy cornfield. 

Ahead, moving lights showed in the Yowell farm¬ 
house and Wish, wet to the skin, had come to a 
decision long before they won to the porch. 

“You let me take the Ford and I’ll get the priest 
at Leonardtown.” 


125 


126 


WHOOPEE! 


“Will you know the way,” asked Albert Ernest 
anxiously, “in this rain?” 

“I have to know it,” said Wish grimly, as there 
came to memory a remark this small boy had made 
only last evening, “Aunt Hattie Yowel is so good to 
me, but she hasn’t gone to church this year.” And 
now this old lady, who had shown him kindnesses 
yesterday, was calling for the priest. 

Wish jumped into the decrepit Ford, while Albert 
Ernest cranked it. When the engine was warm, he 
shouted: 

“Now you take the horse and get the doctor, and 
I’ll have the priest here, or I’ll know the reason why. 
,Tell my Counselor where I’ve gone.” 

Wish switched on the lights and saw a yellow, 
muddy circle of driving rain before him. 

As the old machine dropped into the Three Notch 
Road, Wish prayed to his Guardian Angel: 

“—Ever this night be at my side 
To light, to guard, to rule and guide.” 

Then directing his remarks to the car, he muttered: 

“Strut, Miss Lizzie,” and he released the clutch 
into high. 

The dry, dusty roadbed of the afternoon’s hike 
diad given place to a muddy sea that clung to the 
wheels and forced this amateur chauffeur to fear 
that the engine might stall on him at any time. 

A flash showed him, across a white hillside, the 
tall steeple of St. John’s, and he regretted its 
pastor lived six miles away. Then it was dripping, 
blinding night again on a strange road. 

Wish kept swinging the rain-wiper that cleaned 
the wind shield and repeating “ever this niglit be at 
my side.” 


ON HIS MAJESTY’S SERVICE 


127 


He kept his eyes alert to pick up landmarks as 
each thunderous flash revealed the countryside. 
Thus he saw the public school and, later, the desolate 
looking front of Greenwell’s Store in Hollywood. 

Here he remembered to turn sharply to the left. 

He felt more secure now, for he was on the pike 
that led into Leonardtown and his purpose was not 
to go astray at any of the crossroads. 

A rabbit, white tail showing, loped across the 
muddy roadbed the headlights illuminated, and 
around another turn. Wish greeted as an old friend 
the taU black shadow of a tobacco barn. This he 
remembered from Shorty’s envious remark as they 
drove past it yesterday, ‘T wonder how many million, 
million cigarettes there are there?” 

Further along, an opportune lightning flash 
showed him the road sign, “To Hollywood and Sot- 
terly,” with its arrow pointing down the road he had 
come, and he felt better at this mute confirmation. 

Through dripping woods of cedars that almost 
met, the road narrowed. Wish gave the ancient 
car more gas as he reached the drier parts going up 
hill and he prayed no bootlegger’s machine was com¬ 
ing around the innumerable bends ahead. 

“What’s the use of honking. I won’t stop.” 

At the foot of a long, dark, rain-swept hill there 
suddenly came into view a swollen stream, pock¬ 
marked as big slanting drops struck it. This 
poured a mad barrier across the road to Leonard¬ 
town. Wish recalled this had been the gentle run, he 
had taken on a running jump on the hike out. 

“I hope she doesn’t choke on me.” He said 
anxiously. “Don’t you let her,” he begged the in¬ 
visible guardian at his side. 


128 


WHOOPEE! 


Sliding back into the seat to give length to his 
foot, he pushed the clutch into low and the faithful 
ruins of the Ford plowed through the black shining 
water. For an agonizing second the engine slowed 
in midstream, with the water almost up to the car’s 
axles, but she kept on and took the wet bank. 

“Good, old Miss Lizzie!” he encouraged. “Atta 
boy!” 

It was downhill now, through twin lines of 
dripping pines, with the road to Leonardtown twist¬ 
ing like a broken-backed black snake in the yellow, 
gleaming circle of light ahead. The rain was coming 
down in slanting gray pencils and bars, and it was 
increasingly difficult to keep the muddy ruts. And 
the Ford was slowing down to ten miles. 

Then into sight came a crossroads that appeared 
utterly unfamiliar to Wish. He had no recollectioq 
of having crossed it on the hike out. 

“Which is the right one?” implored Wish as the 
old car crept closer to where the road divided. “O 
Guardian Angel, which?” 

As if a written answer to his appeal, the head¬ 
light brought into view, nailed to a pine, the sign 
^‘Duke Brothers. Leonardtown” with its arrow 
pointing to the left. 

“Thank you,” cried Wish gratefully, and again 
he went into high with reassured confidence. 

The road-way grew better and he gave her gas 
till the old car rocked like a light craft in a heavy 
sea. 

Mechanically he kept swinging the little rubber 
rim on the wind shield and his teeth chattered, as a 


ON HIS MAJESTY’S SERVICE 


129 


turn in the Leonardtown road drove the cold rain 
on his light, clinging, khaki shirt. 

But there came up in his mind the scene of an 
upper room in a farmhouse, and all that was Amer¬ 
ican Catholic in Wish Craig urged him to get to the 
priest. 

He passed a white picket fence that he did not re¬ 
call so near the road, and, further along, he was 
delighted to recognize a pig pen, into which he had 
watched Shorty Howard throw a watermelon rind 
at a red sow. 

Then black lonely night on the desolate road with 
its ever-passing yellow pools, but the thunderstorm 
seemed to be moving down the Potomac and the rain¬ 
fall was distinctly less in volume. 

A farewell lightning flash revealed to the left the 
welcome red and white school building of Leonard 
Hall, on the eastern outskirts of the town. 

“Whoopee 1” cried Wish. He knew where he was 
now. The Priest’s House was only a quarter of a 
mile away. 

Ahead, the road lay straight as a glistening river. 

Then he did a very foolish thing, that should have 
ended this history right here and now. He gave 
her more gas and the ancient Ford tore along. 

Suddenly, a doglike animal trotted out directly 
in the roadway and stopped, dazed by the glare of 
the machine’s headlights. 

Wish exclaimed in surprise: 

“Why, that’s a fox! I told old Tubby there-—” 

And the next moment the rear of the Ford seemed 
to swing around like a chip caught in an eddy. 

Too late Wish’s foot sought the brake. He 


130 


WHOOPEE! 


turned the wheel the wrong direction. The rear seat 
of the machine seemed to rise up, and Wish felt him¬ 
self turning in the cold hlack air. 

“Watch me, Angel,” he shrieked. 

Something cruel struck him on the head and like 
snapping off a light, he lost all consciousness. . . . 

He revived to feel a dog-like creature, that smelt 
most ahominahly, nosing him. This slipped away 
into the night as Wish lifted his head. Dizzily he 
sank down till his cheek touched cold muddy earth, 
and he drifted hack into easy unconsciousness. 

A rough tongue was licking his hand, and Wish 
stirred. A wheezy, worried bark sounded distantly 
familiar in his ear. Was it “Hike”.^ No; ’course 
not. 

And it came to him like a surprising discovery, 
that he was no longer driving the Ford, but sprawled 
in the mud of the road-side. And the wheezy, 
worried, continuous barking belonged to the old 
camp collie. 

“This isn’t ‘Swampoodle’ and it isn’t Purgatory, 
then,” he murmured. 

Then: “Shep! Come here, old boy.” And he 
caught hold of the wet shaggy coat and attempted 
to pull himself up. 

It was black night and for an awful moment he 
thought he was blind. A warm trickle was moving 
ticklingl}^ down his cheek and he knew it was not 
water. 

Shep kept broadcasting his alarm. 

Wish’s eyes grew more accustomed to the black¬ 
ness and he could distinguish the roadway and the 
house across the road and, near-by, the dark shadow^ 


ON HIS maj;esty’s service 


131 


of his Ford, its wheels seemingly growing out of a 
jagged hedge. 

It had stopped raining as Wish got to his feet. 
He slipped and measured his length on Shep. It 
was more comfortable to lie there, for his head was 
throbbing painfully. But the camp collie wiggled 
himself free and renewed his frantic barkings on the 
night air. 

Then there came again to Wish’s mind the reason 
that he had come this far. 

Wish staggered drunkenly to his feet. His hands 
clutched deep into the fur of the coUie. But his 
head was swimming and it was some time before he 
was able to think straight, and locate in which direc¬ 
tion lay Leonardtown. 

W’^hen he did get his bearings, still holding the 
shaggy coat of Shep, he began to limp through the 
muddy blackness. The effort revived him. 

“Well, my loop-the-loop dive out of that old Lizzie 
didn’t bust anything. That’s clear. Hey, old boy.” 
He repeated this, and there seemed to be comfort 
in its wording. 

Shep still barked occasionally. 

Then, like a litany. Wish began saying over and 
over to himself: “I must get to the priest. I must 
call Father McEntee.” 

He came to the iron arch that makes the entrance 
to St. Mary’s Academy and, alongside, the road sign 
that he remembered read, “54 Miles to Washington.” 

The thought came, to go in and have one of the 
Sisters phone his message to the Rectory. But he 
remembered hearing Brother Nicholas say the Sisters 
had a black dog, bigger than Shep. 

“Maybe, they let that dog out loose at ni^it,” 


132 


WHOOPEE! 


thought Wish. And weak and dizzy as he was, he 
limped on. 

“I don’t want to see a dog fight just now,” he 
muttered. 

It was better going on the sidewalk that now lay 
along one side of Washington Street. Wish gritted 
his teeth and the tears came unbidden to his eyes as 
the pain in his head increased and he began to feel 
that he would never come to the looming steeple of 
the church. 

“But I bet I will!” he sobbed. 

Eventually, the steeple showed across tho road 
and he entered the dark shadowed driveway of the 
Rectory grounds. 

“Shut up, Shep. Do you want to wake the 
priests?” he asked. 

Evidently, Shep did. 

It was darker there between the trees and the side 
of the church. Wish looked for “the Priests’ Pump” 
and when its welcome, skeleton tower that supported 
the windmill was faintly visible, he smiled and it 
hurt his face considerably. 

Groping on the porch till he found the bell button, 
with a great sigh of relief, he pushed it again and 
again and again. 

He could hear the bell ringing madly within the 
still Rectory. Some one moved and a door opened 
on the upper porch. 

Then a voice, which Wish gladly recognized as 
Father McEntee’s, called down. 

“O Father. It’s me. Craig. And—^keep still, 
you old Shep—^he’s with me. Father.” 

There was an incredulous exclamation from the 
upper porch. 


ON HIS MAJESTY’S SERVICE 


133 


Weakness flowed through Wish Craig’s limbs; 
weakness and utter weariness, as he stood there on 
the soggy lawn, but he managed to blurt out his 
message. 

He finished anxiously: 

‘‘And, Father, she’s dying and her nephew, that 
Albert Ernest boy, told me she hasn’t been to church 
for over a year.” 

“I’ll be ready in a moment. Wish. Find the bench 
there in the dark and rest till I come.” 

When Wish bumped into the porch bench and sank 
down on it, the old camp collie grew silent and again 
a rough tongue began licking the boy’s hand. 

Wish patted the wise old head gratefully. 

“It sure was lucky, old doggie, that you were up 
at Leonard Hall and not over to the camp to-night.” 

Soon a light was switched on downstairs and it lit 
up the stained-glass window of the house chapel 
brilliantly. 

Then the light snapped out and the front door 
was being unbarred. Shep barked joyously. 

Father McEntee threw his pocket flash on the 
figures of dog and boy that rose wearily from the 
bench. 

“Why! your face is covered with blood! What, 
what happened to you? Are you hurt?” 

“I got pitched out of that old flivver down by 
Leonard Hall, and I don’t remember much till I 
remember Shep giving me First Aid and barking like 
the deuce. But it feels like I got a ‘shiner’ coming. 
Is it. Father? Is it?” 

“No; don’t stop now,” Wish added hastily, as 
Father McEntee attempted to lead him into the 
Rectory. “I’m all right. Don’t you see. Father, 


134 


WHOOPEE! 


jou don’t know the road back and I got to show you. 
You take me in your Dodge and there will be the 
doctor at Yowell’s. He’ll fix me.” 

But Father McEntee insisted on bathing and 
bandaging with his pocket handkerchief the cut over 
Wish’s eye. 

Then they went to the garage and backed out the 
priest’s runabout. 

Shep gave a final bark of relieved responsibility as 
the car’s red light disappeared, and then the old dog 
began trotting down the street toward the camp. 

“I have Our Lord with me, Wish. Ask Him now, 
as we drive back, that this poor soul waits till He 
comes to her.” 

Wish Craig bowed reverently to His Majesty, 
Whom he knew lay in the little silken and gold bag, 
close to Father McEntee’s heart. 

They traversed in no time the long way Wish had 
trudged. 

The priest released pressure on the accelerator, 
at the same time gently applying his brakes. In 
the side-glare of the bright headlight lay the wreck of 
the Ford, wheels up, in the ruined hedge by the road¬ 
side. 

Neither spoke for a long while. Then Father 
McEntee said, as both gazed at the overturned 
machine: 

“My boy, some one shielded you when that car 
turned turtle.” 

“I don’t know his name, but I know who did. My 
Guardian Angel. But, Father, he’s let me get a 
peach of a black eye. It’s closing more each second.” 

The priest nodded, and Wish suddenly recalled 
the Third Passenger in the car. 


ON HIS MAJESTY’S SERVICE 


135 


He was silent with the silence altar boys associate 
with the sanctuary, and he muttered a prayer of 
Thanksgiving. 

Later, he kept repeating, ‘‘Don’t let her die, dear 
Lord, till You come. Don’t let her, please.” 

Down the dark road, glistening in the arc of the 
car’s headlight, the priest korced his little Dodge, 
through the swollen run and muddy stretches, in¬ 
credibly lonely in the midnight hour. 

Wish dozed at his side and there came over him 
a comforting feeling of security. He did not as¬ 
sociate this with Father McEntee, but with Him, 
WTo lay on the priest’s bosom. 

When they came, at length, to Greenwell’s Store 
in Hollywood, Father McEntee called: 

“Wish, old man, you will have to show me the way 
from here. I’m a stranger in this parish. It’s 
unfortunate, the pastor of St. John’s is in Washing¬ 
ton till Saturday. Which road?” 

Wish guided the machine into the Thrfee Notch 
Road and they turned in the muddy gateway and 
there were the lights in the Yowell farmhouse. 

Albert Ernest came running down from the porch 
to greet them with the glad news: 

“You’re in time. Father. But hurry.” 

Then the little boy held aloft his lantern and 
gazed open-mouthed at the wet, muddy clothes and 
the streaked, bandaged face of Wish Craig. 

Without a word he turned about and raced into 
the farmhouse. 

He returned with a stockily built man, who asked: 

“Where is he? You go right up. Father, while I 
attend to this dying youngster.” 

The Doctor lifted Wish easily and carried him 


136 


WHOOPEE! 


despite his anxious, “I’m all right. Let me walk,” 
into a bedroom. 

Wish was sound asleep long before the Doctor 
finished with him. 

When Wish awoke, it w^as broad daylight, the sun 
shining in from a glorious heaven, and Father 
McEntee was standing at his cot side. 

Wish looked around, expecting to see the green 
rows of tobacco leaf, hanging overhead. Instead, 
he was looking up on the rude rafters and the white 
sheet walls that portioned off a part of “Mothek 
Inn.” 

A wheezy old bark came from somewhere near-by. 

“Whoopee! I must have had a great dream! 
Father, I~” 

“If your dream refers to last night’s joy-ride, it 
was no dream, for I brought you back in the Dodge 
from Yowell’s early this morning, and you stayed 
put all the way in, young man.” 

“And Aunt Hattie? What^—” 

“Aunt Hattie asked me to give you her message 
and these were her words, ‘Thank that little Wash¬ 
ington boy and may the Good God reward him for 
what he has done this night for a poor sinner.’ ” 

“Is she all right?” began Wish. 

“Yes, son. For Aunt Hattie took a longer 
j ourney than you did, at two this morning.” 

“Dead!” exclaimed Wish Craig. “Dead!” As 
the truth dawned on him. 

Wish sat up in his cot and there shone even in 
his bandaged face the look of Catholic pity for the 
Suffering Souls in Purgatory. 

“Father, could you bring me Holy Communion 
from the Chapel? I’m fasting yet.” 


ON HIS MAJESTY’S SERVICE 


137 


And, then, so that Father McEntee might not be 
tempted to introduce immediately the cause for the 
beatification of the Venerable Aloysius Craig, he said 
most humanly: 

‘‘And afterward you please tell some one Fd like 
a little brefidsfast, and plenty of it.” 


CHAPTER XIII 


THE BATTLE OF BRETON BAY 

^^T)EFORE I’d let anybody decorate me like 
that,” declared Sonny Socolow, stopping on 
the ladder in a “Farragut at the Battle of Mobile 
Bay” attitude and pointing with his toe at Wish 
Craig’s colorful eye, “do you know what I’d do?” 

In an unguarded moment Wish, who was holding 
the canoe off the piles on which the channel light 
stood, asked: 

“What would Kiddie Baltimore do?” 

“I’d kill him dead, I would,” ferociously responded 
iSonny. In his lobster scarlet suit the afternoon 
sunsliine made him stand out an interesting study 
in violent contrasts with the black-painted base of 
the light that was erected off Buzzard’s Point. 

“Yeh!” remarked the third boy, from his comfor¬ 
table position in the center of the canoe, “and then 
the State of Maryland would call into use its little 
electric chair an—” 

“Electric high-chair, you mean,” corrected Wish, 
winking his undamaged eye. 

“That’s just like all you know. Tubby. Mary¬ 
land doesn’t shock them. It hangs them.” 

“Well, then they’d use some twine,” said Wish. 
“Go on up and take your last dive. Sonny, and never 
138 


f 


THE BATTLE OF BRETON BAY 


139 


mind my eye. You don’t have to wear it. I got it 
in a good cause.” 

“And that’s more than Sonny boy can say of the 
one Bernie Ball presented him last month,” called 
up Tubby. “Remember, Sonny Back of the Can¬ 
teen ?” 

But the trim figure in the lobster scarlet one- 
piece suit was rapidly going up the ladder. On the 
string-piece, ten feet above the water of Breton Bay, 
he poised, hands arched over his head, to yell down: 

“How do I know he got that peacock’s tail on his 
cheek in a good cause Didn’t he go to sleep in his 
blanket in that old tobacco barn alongside of me and 
when I woke up in the morning, he wasn’t anywhere 
Didn’t our Counselor say he had taken and wrecked 
the Yowell’s Ford, tearing back, eighty bumps a 
minute, to Leonardtown at midnight.'^ Then when 
we hike back to camp, there is our hero all propped 
up in ‘Mothee. Inn,’ looking like—^looking like—” 

Miles away on the Potomac an “8” gun was tested 
at the Indian Head Proving Grounds, and its thun¬ 
der shook the light. 

Sonny Socolow started to lose his balance. He 
blessed himself with lightning-like rapidity, twisted 
straight for a dive, and as he began to fall through 
the air, shrieked: 

“—like ‘The Wreck of the Hesperus.’ ” 

“You’ll know just what happened to the Skip¬ 
per’s little daughter,” shouted Wish, as Sonny’s 
head came to the surface, “if you splash any more 
water into this canoe again.” 

“Stop crabbing and let the baby lobster in,” ad¬ 
vised Tubby. “It’s late, and here comes the ferry 
to Virginia. Let’s ride her waves.” 


140 


WHOOPEE! 


When the lobster scarlet figure was taken on 
board, the canoe put out from the channel light. 
She rocked in the wake of the passing ferry-boat, 
and then headed in for the green wooded cliff, on 
which stood Camp Columbus. 

Wish, despite his partially damaged sight, was the 
first to discover the strange doings on the diving 
float. 

As they paddled closer, the canoeists made out 
Brother Nicholas’ blue and white life-guard suit, 
conspicuous in the strong sunlight, and with him 
three familiar figures of “Swampoodle Inn.” 

They were all busily engaged in erecting a burlap 
wall around the four sides of the diving float, and 
through this breastwork, at spaced intervals, the 
canoeists were puzzled to see the crane-like Lanci- 
ano thrusting the sawed off sections of logs. 

Again Indian Head spoke, and its voice carried 
over Breton Bay. 

‘‘They’re making a fort. That’s what they’re do¬ 
ing!” excitedly shouted Sonny. “Now I know why 
Shorty and Elmo wanted to borrow the cook’s saw. 
I didn’t think they needed exercise, as they told me.” 

“Yes; and there’s our Counselor fastening up an 
oar for a flagstaff.” Tubby Thompson was no 
longer reclining lazily in the center of the canoe. 
“Come on. Put your back into it. Wish, and let us 
see what’s the great idea over at ‘Fort McHenry.’ ” 

It was still a disputed mystery when they ceased 
paddling and lay twenty-five feet off the diving float. 
They would have come closer, but Legs Lanciano 
yelled sternly: 

“You keep away from ‘Fort Columbus’ or you’re 
liable to get shot for, for truancy.” He turned 


THE BATTLE OF BRETON BAY 


141 


one of the log guns, till it trained ominously at the 
ample breast of Tubby Thompson. 

“Move that vest pocket pop-gun of yours away, 
or I’ll tell Indian Head, and they’ll ruin you,” 
warned Tubby. 

The big Counselor stopped his work to intervene: 

“Where did you fellows disappear to after the 
swimming races this afternoon.^ I could have used 
you. However, I want Wish. It’s late now and 
almost Confession time, so the rest rack your canoe 
and go on up.” 

“And forget for a few hours what you saw here,” 
added Lanciano. 

Wish Craig needed no second invitation to stay. 
He threw his paddle into Tubby^s lap, and before 
that astonished camper could expostulate, he had 
neatly flipped himself out of the canoe and was swim¬ 
ming toward the float. 

“Aw! Keep your secret,” said the voice from the 
lobster scarlet bathing suit disgustedly. “I know. 
It’s something childish, I bet.” 

“Whoopee!” exclaimed Ranier, popping his 
freckled face Punch-like over the edge of the burlap 
fortification. “Then our Sonny is surely going to 
enjoy himself to-night!” 

Shorty Howard grabbed Elmo and he shut up. 

Tall Brother Nicholas straightened up from his 
work on the improvised flagstaff long enough to put 
on his “umpire countenance” and to go through the 
sweeping motion that means “out” on any diamond. 

Under forced obedience the* canoe started toward 
the racks, with Sonny Socolow wearing a puzzled 
expression on his very much sunburnt features. 

The two boys instinctively turned toward the Can- 


142 


WHOOPEE! 


teen, as they finished climbing tlie long stairs up 
from the camp bathing beach. 

Here, as they ate ice-cream cones and ‘‘Eskimo 
Pies,” Teddy Thompson solved the mystery for 
them. 

“Whoopee! We’re going to have fun. Don’t tell 
anybody, but I know what’s on for this evening. 
The Camp Director has just taken—Gee Whizzers!— 
a regular ammunition dump of Roman candles over 
to the Leonardtown wharf in the truck. The camp 
is going to paddle over after supper and get them. 
Tlien we’re to come back after dark and attack that 
‘Fort Columbus’ they’re building.” 

“Where did they get the Roman candles?” de¬ 
manded Sonny, starting on a fresh cone. “I never 
saw them.” 

“Yes; you did, and that’s one thing you didn’t 
know all about. You saw that long box his Uncle 
sent Legs, and Brother Christopher made Lanciano 
keep quiet and wouldn’t let him open it? Well, 
Lanciano’s Uncle makes fireworks, see! 

“In the ‘Fort’ they’re to be Pioneers and we’re to 
be Indians!” 

“Whoopee!” yelled Sonny, flourishing the remains 
of his cone like the stick of a bursting Roman candle 
and then neatly sailing it to catch a surprised “Isa¬ 
bella” on a furry ear. “I’m going to be Chief 
Tomahawk to-night and I’m going to attend to 
those pale-face pioneers. I’m—” 

“‘Chief Tomahawk,’ hey.^” said Teddy Thomp¬ 
son, grinning broadly. “That’s just the name for 
you. Sonny!” 

“Why?” asked Sonny with sudden suspicion. 

“Borrow Brother Eusebius’ dictionary there in 


THE BATTLE OF BRETON BAY 


143 


the Canteen and look up the definition of ‘toma¬ 
hawk.’ ” 

Tubby had already rushed to borrow it and he 
was grinning delightedly. 

“You let me have that dictionary. You give it 
to me,” insisted Sonny, jumping up and down trying 
to snatch it from the hands of the twins, who were 
joyfully tossing the book over Socolow’s head. 

“Whoopee! See Sonny Socolow begging for a 
school book in summertime! Hey, fellows, look!” 
teased Teddy. 

When Sonny did obtain possession of the “school 
book”—due to Tubby not seeing “Ferdinand” im¬ 
mediately behind him—^he brushed the pages by till 
he came to the definition of “tomahawk.” 

“Read it out loud,” invited Tubby, still sitting on 
the floor. 

The gong clanged up “Columbus Avenue.” 

“Aw! It’s nothing. Here’s your school book. 
Brother. Thanks,” shouted Sonny Socolow, return¬ 
ing the dictionary through the Canteen window. 
“There’s the bell for weekly Confessions. I don’t 
want to be late,” he added piously, and made a dash 
for his bungalow. 

Tubby and his twin quoted after him: 

“ ‘Tomahawk: the American Indian battle-ax, 
with head of stone. Good-by, Little Chief Toma¬ 
hawk.” 

But Sonny was already unfastening the strap of 
his lobster scarlet one-piece suit as he disappeared 
within “SwAMPOODLE Inn.” 

The Camp Director had issued strict orders to his 
various Counselors that no personal preparations 
for the evening’s battle were in order till after Con- 


144 


WHOOPEE! 


fession Hour. But this prohibition did not apply to 
the penitents who had said their Penance. And with 
the gayety that a good conscience gives, the campers 
came down from the Chapel and plunged into the 
excitement of getting ready for the Battle of Breton 
Bay. 

The gong, inviting to another meal, interrupted 
these preparations and in the hum of happy war¬ 
like conversation, the camp supped. 

The tables listened in silence while the Director, 
at the end of the meal, announced that only those 
who had passed their canoe tests were eligible to 
go in the war party: the rest could come in the 
^‘Santa Maria,” but all would join the shore spec¬ 
tators, if they were not on the dock by seven-thirty 
shai*p. 

“Chief Tomahawk,” artistically hideous in his 
lobster scarlet one-piece suit, plus black and white 
striped limbs and face, and adorned with a war bon¬ 
net of turkey feathers, stuck in the uneatable rind 
of a cantaloup, was not the last on the dock at the 
appointed hour for departure. His early arrival 
and subsequent sticking close to the person of 
Brother Norbert, was occasioned by the accidental 
discovery on the part of the Thompson twins that 
it was their talcum powder and their shoe polish 
which bleached and blackened “Chief Tomahawk’s” 
winsome, streaked features. 

In the warm dusk of the August day, the war 
party of “Whoopee-ing” Indians paddled across the 
smooth waters of Breton Bay. The Baltimore boat, 
“Northumberland,” Washington bound, gave the 
fleet a siren salute, which was returned with blood¬ 
thirsty interest. 


THE BATTLE OF BRETON BAY 


145 


After the songs no longer floated back from Fox- 
well’s Point, Brother Nicholas with his four picked 
Pioneers, rowed out to the still “Fort Columbus.” 
They carried with them ample ammunition, the camp 
phonograph, and a mysterious box, off of and out 
of which the Counselor had to tell Wish and Shorty, 
and Elmo and Legs, to keep their pioneer paws. 

As there were no canoes or rowboats left on the 
beach, it was easy for the “Fort’s” defenders to dis¬ 
regard the advice and offers of assistance that came 
continuously from the crowded dock. 

The four boys, looking more like pirates than 
Pioneers, with their red bandanna turbans and sun- 
dyed skins, were deep in a discussion. 

“Then that makes 15344 shots in all,” concluded 
Lanciano. “I wish there was more noise in Roman 
candles!” 

“Then,” observed Wish, whose dark eye gave an 
appropriate touch to his buccaneer costume, “then, 
as the director said we were to have one quarter of 
the Roman candles, there must be about 4000 shots 
in those bunches there.” He pointed to the bundles 
that lay under the protecting burlap. “I never shot 
off that many in my whole life! Whoopee!” 

Elmo Ranier’s brows knitted and he announced: 

“No; 3836 shots, if the Director whacked them up 
honest.” 

“Whoopee! Brother Nicholas,” shrieked Wish, 
^‘your fake fort will fire 3836 shots at the Indians 
to-night! Not bad!” 

“Whoopee! This is going to be some scrimmage, 
do you know that?” asked Shorty Howard of no¬ 
body in particular. 

It was getting dark fast, so dark, in fact, that it 


14G 


WHOOPEE! 


was hard to distinguish objects off the point, around 
which the fleet of war canoes would have to come. 

Finally, the big Counselor, who had directed other 
naval battles other camp seasons, and hoped to live 
to direct yet others, gave this advice to his gar¬ 
rison: 

‘‘Now, if you are wise, each of you will take a dip 
just as I am doing now.” 

Like porpoises, the four boys curved over the 
burlap ramparts into the dark waters. 

When they came dripping up the ladder, the 
Counselor continued: 

“The Camp Director and the other Counselors 
will not let their braves paddle in too close, but if, 
by accident, a ball strikes a damp bathing suit, 
it won’t do much damage. 

“And remember this, be as bloodthirsty as you 
please in your yelling, but aim your candles up— 
not out directly—as you whirl them. Any brave 
defender of this ‘fort,’ who violates this article of 
war will swim ashore pronto. 

“I’ll attend to the lighting of the candles and the 
red fire. Now we are all ready. Let them come on.” 

Elmo broke in: 

“Listen, they’re coming. Don’t you hear? 
That’s Sonny Socolow’s sweet voice. He’s arguing 
with Tubby.” 

“Then I bet a cone. Tubby called him ‘Chief Toma¬ 
hawk,’ ” observed Wish, as across the dark waters, 
darker objects moved menacingly toward floating 
“Fort Columbus.” 

The Battle of Breton Bay was about to com¬ 
mence. 

Evidently, the war canoes of the Indians were 


THE BATTLE OF BRETON BAY 


147 


maneuvering to attack in a wide circle all sides of 
the “fort” simultaneously. 

The defending Pioneers crouched behind their bur¬ 
lap breastworks and Brother Nicholas bit off the 
end of his cigar to have his lighter ready. 

“ ‘Don’t fire till you see the whites of Sonny’s 
teeth,’ ” misquoted Wish, waving his bunch of 
iRoman candles, impatient to begin. 

“Yeh; you Roman candle Pioneer I I’m going to 
ruin you and your good eye,” was Sonny Socolow’s 
reply from the outer darkness. 

A shrill whistle blew from the “Santa Maria,” 
which had taken a position well behind any danger 
of a stray shot. 

“That’s the signal,” said Brother Nicholas, strik¬ 
ing a match. “I hope nobody in Leonardtown in¬ 
tended to take early bed to-night.” 

Yellow glows of striking matches in the canoes be¬ 
trayed the Indians on all sides. 

At once yells, audible to Abell’s Wharf and Paw¬ 
paw Hollow down Breton Bay, broke out as the first 
candle sputtered its sparks and arc-ed a ball of fire 
into the black sky. 

The Battle of Breton Bay had commenced. 

Minutes later a narrowing circle of falling fire 
was illuminating the outlines of “Fort Columbus.” 
Aloft, a breeze lifted the folds of the flag and waved 
it over the heads of the five Pioneers. 

The fiery circle of wildly-excited Indians closed in, 
but the paddling Counselors prudently kept their 
canoes far enough off, so that the balls of blazing 
powder fell harmlessly in the waters around the 
“fort.” 

As the Indians’ supply of ammunition ran low, the 


148 


WHOOPEE! 


Counselor gave the order to the turbanned Shorty 
to light the tins of red fire at each corner of the 
^‘fort,” 

Immediately, a warm glow spread over the scene 
and showed in the nearest canoe Brother Eusebius, 
Red Cooper, Tubby, and, in the bows, a small demon 
in a lobster scarlet one-piece suit with a dilapidated 
war bonnet of turkey feathers cocked rakishly over 
one ear. 

The demon’s shrill litany “Kill the Pioneers!” 
“Kill the Pioneers 1” was distinct above the uproar. 
He varied this litany to shriek: 

“Whoopee! The old ‘Fort’s’ on fire!” 

“Come any closer. Little Chief Tomahawk, and 
you’ll be,” yelled Wish encouragingly. He was 
sweating mightily from the constant excitement of 
being one-fifth of the defending force, and his tired 
arm waved a bunch of six Roman candles ia the 
general direction of the spectator stars. 

“Yeh, you better paddle off to Baltimore,” he 
taunted. “Go and play marbles in Jones’ Falls.” 

“Chief Tomahawk” twisted to light another Roman 
candle. He shouted over his shoulder: 

“Whoopee! This is my last one. But I’m go¬ 
ing to make it good!” He reached back to return 
his Counselor his cigar. 

As Socolow’s last candle began to sputter and 
shed sparks, in his excitement. Sonny directed its 
course downward toward his own bare legs. 

“Kill the Pi—OUCEI!” 

The cry was left hanging in mid-air and near-by 
Pioneers and Redskins were treated to the sight of 
Sonny falling backward into the protesting lap of 
Tubby Thompson. His last Roman candle was 


THE BATTLE OF BRETON BAY 


149 


faithfully making good by showering sparks and 
balls over his dodging canoe mates. 

It will never be definitely settled—they are still 
heatedly arguing it—^who tipped the canoe, but 
Brother Eusebius, Red Cooper, and Tubby Thomp^ 
son accompanied “Chief Tomahawk” on his unex-- 
pected red-fire-light swim. 

Immediately Brother Nicholas ordered: 

“Light all the red fire we have, and you, Wish„ 
stand by to dive in with me if they need any assist¬ 
ance out there.” 

The increased illumination showed each of the 
survivors, as he came to the surface, heading for 
Sonny. But Sonny Socolow, suspecting massacre, 
was already swimming for shore at his best racing 
stroke. He was still leading and it seemed increas¬ 
ing his lead, when pursuers and pursued swam be¬ 
yond tlie ruddy glare. 

As “Fort Columbus” defenders whirled the last 
of their Roman candles into the heavens, above the 
camp dock a bomb crashed in the skies. 

The Battle of Breton Bay was officially over. 

“Nobody killed,” breathed Brother Nicholas. 
‘^Rescue is coming to the besieged ‘fort.’ Shorty, 
Elmo, light up the red fire on top of the diving plat¬ 
form, Legs, the phonograph, please,” 

Tlie last Roman candle went black. The canoes, 
vivid with their Indians in the ruddy glow, paddled 
around “Fort Columbus.” 

The concealed camp phonograph furnished the 
National Anthem and the fresh young voices of 
Counselors, Pioneers, and Indians took up the im¬ 
mortal words that always stir something holy in 
American breasts. Overhead, the ruddy old flag 


150 


WHOOPEE! 


against its real starry background swayed languidly, 
yet triumphantly. 

As the red fire and the song died down, a burst 
of hand-clapping from dock and shore and cliff be¬ 
trayed the spectacular battle had been witnessed by 
an appreciative audience of Leonardtown folks. 

But the real thrill of the evening came, when 
across the black waters boomed the voice of Brother 
Christopher: 

‘‘Now you Indians have just ten minutes to rack 
your canoes and get up the hill. For exactly ten 
minutes from this second I am going to throw open 
the Mess Hall doors and—” 

The Camp Director paused dramatically to let 
the hungry warriors catch the full significance of 
his words. 

“—and on a hot night like this, those cakes and 
those plates of something else might—” 

Sonny Socolow’s exultant “Whoopee!” from the 
shore end of the dock almost drowned out the noise 
of eager paddles hitting the water. 

Brother Nicholas was not to be outdone in sur¬ 
prises. For he restrained his Pioneers, saying: 

“Let those Indians storm the Mess Hall. Now, 
Elmo, there are cakes in the tin behind you. 

“And, you with the dark eye there, carefully take 
the cover off that gallon can, you’ll find in the box 
I forbade you to touch as we rowed out. Be sure 
to keep the salty ice out of my share of that cream.” 

“Whoopee 1” “Whoopee!” “Whoopee 1” “Who- 
o-op-eel!” came the delighted exclamation from the 
Pioneers’ parched throats. 

The Battle of Breton Bay was forgotten in the 
imminence of a more important engagement. 


CHAPTER XIV 


LITTLE PIG 

W ISH CRAIG and Shorty Howard in freshly- 
laundered camp shorts with the blue ‘‘C” on 
their white jerseys swung into the camp grounds. 
They carried thin, pliant canes jauntily. Then 
they broke into a race as the supper gong clanged 
its harsh, yet never unpleasant invitation. 

“Where have you two dudes been all afternoon? 
You weren’t down swimming. I want to know!” de¬ 
manded Elmo Ranier, as, Grace said, the “Swam- 
POODLE Inn” table busied itself with the serious 
business of the moment. 

“Yes; and where did you crook those swell canes?” 
Tubby Thompson pointed to the two canes carefully 
stuck out of harm’s way, back of a “Holy Cross” 
and a ^‘Calvert Hall” pennant on the Mess Hall 
wall. 

“You didn’t have them when you disappeared,” 
stated his twin brother enviously. 

“I’m not so very hungry this evening,” Wish re¬ 
marked, ignoring all questions, “are you, Shorty.^” 
“Whoopee! No,” honestly agreed Howard, 
neatly forking the second last slice of cold chicken 
as he saw Sonny Socolow about to reach for it. 
“You think you’re smart,” flared up Sonny. 

He knew too well, if he took the last slice, the 
151 


152 


WHOOPEE! 


inexorable Mess Hall custom would force him to 
take the empty plate to the kitchen for a second 
supply. 

“ ‘Take it and you get more,* quoted Tubby un¬ 
selfishly. 

“Yeh; why don’t you ever take the last thing, you 
starved Mauretania.^” 

Sonny Socolow, sweeping Tubby’s plate with 
hasty glance, picked up the second last slice of 
bread and placed it on his own plate. Then tliought- 
fully placing his food under the protection of the 
Counselor, he took the empty meat dish and joined 
the line that was continuously disappearing into the 
cook’s domains. 

When he returned, hearing the replenishment aloft 
on a tripod of fingers, he grinned delightedly as he 
passed Tubby Thompson going in for more bread. 

“Whoopee! The hungry Baby Elephant had to 
get up!” 

When Sonny sat in his place again, he added 
generously: 

“Here, you fellows, hurry up and take all the 
meat, but the last hunk.” 

“Now tell us, W^ish, something,” Sonny insisted. 
“Where have you been since Letter Writing Hour.?” 

“Nothing to conceal,” began Wish. “The Direc¬ 
tor needed two trustworthy boys, so he sent Shorty 
and yours truly to town to bring Father McEntee 
his— What do you call the priest’s prayer book? 
—^bee-something-or-other? I always forget that 
word.” 

“Breviary.” This from the Counselor at the 
head of the table. 

“Yes; that’s it. The Chaplain forgot it in 


LITTLE PIG 


153 


‘Kum Bac Inn’ this morning, and when we got 
there—” 

‘^There! Where!” impatiently cried Lanciano. 

‘‘Why, the Rectory in Leonardtown. The church 
grounds looked like a—like a—^just grand. 

“There were autos and Fords parked either side 
the street from the Town Hall, where we saw the 
movies last time they had them, ’way up beyond the 
church. But in the grounds under the trees! 
Whoopee! 

“You tell ’em. Shorty, what we saw. I want to 
eat some.” 

Nothing loath, Howard took up the burden of 
recent events, 

“There were tents up on the lawn and a dance 
floor, but only the kiddies were playing tag and 
sliding on it yet. You’d like that, Sonny.” 

Sonny Socolow gave Shorty a withering look and 
continued steadily eating. 

“And there were stands, where ladies sold just 
everything, and a doll baby game, and there were 
men and women of both sexes strolling around and 
calling each other ‘Aunt Ida’ and ‘Cousin Albert.’ 
I guess all the parish, except those detained in the 
cemetery, were there. And they were all taking 
chances on ’most everything.” He paused and then 
added reflectively: “Some sensible ones were eat¬ 
ing their dinner under a wide awning.” 

Wish broke in: 

“W^ stopped to watch at the Fancy Table, and 
I saw an old gentleman win three beautiful things, 
one right after another. Whoopee I He was lucky! 
He got a table lamp with a pink shade and one of 
those sewed things they put over pillows in the day- 


164 


WHOOPEE! 


time so you can’t tell whether they are clean or not, 
and then he won a lady’s middy blouse, size thirty or 
something, but he gave that right back to the church, 
’cause he hadn’t worn that size for years, I guess. 

“Gee Whizzers! I wished Shorty—we had some 
money with us. For they put up a peach of a base¬ 
ball suit; cap, belt, white sox-and all. It would 
have fitted any one of us—except the twins, though,” 
Wish added as an afterthought. “All the town boys 
took chances, and a girl who was deaf won it.” 

“And we met that Albert Ernest Yowell boy there, 
too,” contributed Shorty. “Say, they got that Ford 
of theirs fixed up. I saw it and it looks better than 
when Wish ruined it, that night. Little Yowell won 
a pound of tobacco. Only his mother, or somebody 
like that, who was with him, must have thought it 
wasn’t good tobacco, ’cause she made him hand it 
right straight back to the Fancy Table lady. 

“That boy was trying to get his nickel back, when 
we went away. Fat chance!” 

“What are you—they doing all that for over at 
the church.?” asked Teddy puzzled. 

The Counselor furnished the information. 

“It is the Annual Festival. That’s the way the 
poor parishes down here in the Counties raise church 
funds for the year.” 

“I don’t see where they make any money.” Teddy 
was still puzzled. “If—” 

“All those articles are contributed free by the 
parish. Don’t you see that?” sneered Sonny, test¬ 
ing the teapot to learn if there were two cups left 
before he refilled his cup. “Over at St. Bernard’s 
where we go in Baltimore, when they were going to 
have the Bazaar, my mother got rid of— 


LITTLE PIG 


155 


‘‘Brother Nicholas,” inquired Tubby, coining to 
his twin’s aid, “couldn’t we contribute our little 
‘Chief Tomahawk’ to one of the tables? Somebody 
might take a chance on him—if it was dark and they 
had plenty of money to waste.” 

“You’d never be able to take a chance on me, then, 
you big Baby Elephant, you.” 

Sonny passed the few grains left in the bottom of 
the sugar bowl and carefully poured half the re¬ 
maining milk into his cup. 

The Counselor diplomatically changed a delicate 
subject by inquiring: 

“But where did you get the canes. Shorty, if you 
two were ‘broke’?” 

Wish promptly answered: 

“Oh! We won them at the cane rack. You know 
that Leonardtown altar boy who played second after 
we knocked him out of the box last Monday? He 
couldn’t bat, either. Well, that one was running 
the cane rack, and after we had finished dinner—” 

“Dinner!” yelled Sonny and the Thompson twins. 

“Dinner!” echoed Legs Lanciano and Elmo Ranier. 

“Sure thing! Chicken dinner, too,” said Shorty, 
smiling reminiscently. “A gentleman who knew 
Father McEntee, bought tickets and invited us to 
sit at his table. He, that gentleman who bought the 
meal tickets, has a yacht. She’s down at Piney 
Point just now and he said next time we went on a 
canoe hike down—” 

“Chicken dinner! And you came running back 
here so as to be in time for the camp supper!” 
Sonny shook his head sadly. “I would not be your 
stomach for a million, billion dollars!” 

“Yes; after that,” added Shorty, “Wish told the 


156 


WHOOPEE! 


young girl who waited on us the dinner was so good, 
he’d like to give her a tip, only all his money was 
over in camp.” 

“Yeh; fifteen cents,” volunteered Sonny, ‘‘and of 
that, he owes me—” 

“Now, my tummy, you’ll never get that seven cents 
if you talk that way.” Wish’s tones were infinitely 
pathetic. 

Shorty resumed: 

“Well, the gentleman who invited us in, said a 
chicken dinner wasn’t any good unless you had some 
ice cream. 

“With his quarter, we bought two cones, and then 
we went over to the cane rack and bought three 
rings from that Leonardtown altar boy. 

“And Wish was lucky. He ringed both of them.” 

Enviously, the rest of the table examined the thin, 
pliable canes with the bull pup heads. 

One thought was in each boy’s mind. 

Tubby remarked charitably: 

“It’s our duty to contribute to the support of poor 
parishes, isn’t it. Brother Nicholas.?” 

A scraping of many chairs announced the end of 
supper. 

Later, when it was already dusk, “Swampoodle 
Inn” mobilized their paddles and sought the canoe 
racks. 

“Maybe, we better wait for Sonny, He’ll be sore, 
if we don’t,” objected Wish, when the verdict was 
to push off without him. “And he received his al¬ 
lowance to-day, too.” 

“Aw! That kid‘s up with the radio crowd in the 
Pavilion, listening in for the baseball scores,” said 


LITTLE PIG 


167 


Tubby, waving his paddle. ‘‘Come on, before iCs 
black dark.” 

Two canoes put off and paddled singingly in the 
direction of Leonardtown. As they rounded Fox- 
well’s Point, that hid the sight of the camp, a small 
figure came running down the long steps and it only 
stopped running when it stood on the spring-board 
at the end of the pier. 

Here, the small figure seemed to be rehearsing 
with many eloquent gestures, an exciting elocution 
piece for the exclusive benefit of the moored “Santa 
Maria.” 

It was quite dark when the canoes were drawn up 
on the small oyster shell beach below the store on 
the wharf. And with paddles aslant bronzed shoul¬ 
ders, the campers marched up winding Washington 
Street. 

Wish called a halt in the light that shone from 
Duke Brothers’ Store. 

“How about cones?” 

“But the decision was to spend all the money at 
the Festival. 

“Then let’s see how much we got to spend on the 
church,” he demanded. 

“A quarter,” admitted the Thompson twins after 
a brotherly consultation. “Dad hasn’t received 
our last letter yet.” 

“Three nickels, if I haven’t lost one,” said Elmo, 
busy in other pockets. 

Before Shorty Howard announced his current 
finances, Lanciano whispered to him and as a result. 
Legs was able to declare: 

“Three cents.” 


158 


WHOOPEE! 


‘‘And a lone Buffalo nickel is mine,” said Shorty. 
“Mother has forgotten my summer address.” 

Wish looked hopefully at Brother Nicholas, but 
the big Counselor shook his head, remarking: 

“A vow of poverty, working perfectly.” 

“Then that makes, with my dime and five pennies,” 
—rapid calculations always cast an earnest expres¬ 
sion over Wish Craig’s sunburnt features—“that 
makes sixty-three cents to spend. I’m the treasurer. 
Come across. Let’s go.” 

As the camp boys entered the light-strung grounds 
of the church, they heard the orchestra playing 
dreamily by the outdoor dance floor and the rhyth¬ 
mical swish-shish of the feet of many couples. 

But under Wish’s and Shorty Howard’s guidance 
they wormed their way through the parish crowd 
to seek at once the site of the afternoon’s cane rack. 

Wreckage of papers and a few scattered wooden 
rings met their disappointed gaze. 

Wish spied one of the Leonardtown altar boys, 
wearing a brand new baseball suit over his summer 
khaki and swinging a bull pup headed cane. 

“Hey, you catcher. Where’re the canes gone?” 

“All won, Camp Columbus. You should have 
come around this after. I got five. But, say, 
there’s one baseball suit like this that hasn’t been 
put up yet. I just have ten cents left to take a 
chance on it when they put it up. Come on, I think 
they are going to let it go now.” 

The disappointed cane hunters trooped over to 
the Fancy Table to risk their cash on the last base¬ 
ball suit. 

Wish purchased six tickets and he had just dis- 


LITTLE PIG 


159 


tributed one to each, when the winning number was 
called out. 

A large lady on the edge of the crowd, who held a 
nursery of five dolls under one arm, claimed the base¬ 
ball suit. 

The disgusted campers drifted over to the pump. 
Wish said: 

^‘Three cents left and ten hours to breakfast! 
That’s going to buy this bunch an awful, awful lot 
of food, I don’t think.” 

As he spoke there was a wheezy bark at his feet 
and he looked down to see the old camp collie wag¬ 
ging his shaggy self, delighted to recognize a camper 
among this crowd of strangers. 

‘‘Where did you come from, Shep 1” exclaimed 
Shorty, addressing the collie directly, as he patted 
him with his canoe paddle. 

“Got any money with you to-night, old dog?” 
asked Wish almost wistfully. “You did me a 
mighty good turn once-t before, just in this neigh¬ 
borhood, Shep.” 

“You’re a nice bunch of fellows, you are! You 
thought you shook me, didn’t you?” said a disgusted 
voice, and Sonny Socolow stood in the midst of them. 

He carried a bull pup headed cane, a partially 
consumed ice-cream cone, and from his khaki shirt 
pocket protruded the butt of a water pistol. 

Without further ado he flaunted his surplus wealth 
before poverty-stricken “Swampoodle Inn.” 

“Well, I want you to know I have a bill left too.” 

He produced a greenback and waved it in the 
glare of the electric light that there might be no 
doubt of his veracity. “And what’s more, down 


160 


WHOOPEE! 


there where they had the cane rack stand, I just 
found this.” 

The rest of “Swampoodle Inn” crowded closer 
and saw a quarter resting in Sonny’s palm. 

A subtle change came over the five other boys. 

“We have just three pennies between us. Sonny.” 
Wish produced the total wealth and held it pathet¬ 
ically in his open palm. 

Tubby’s voice was almost apologetic: 

“Say, Stanislaus, that’s awful decent of you to 
offer to treat.” 

“You just bet I’m going to treat. But not any 
of you fellows, who w^ould not wait for me at the 
dock. No, sir! I’m going to spend my money, all 
of it, on the church, by way of that hot dog stand 
over there. You watch and see if I don’t. Come on, 
Shep.” 

While they gazed with starved looks, the boys saw 
Sonny Socolow approach the young girl who was 
dealing out the delectable sausages, and with famine 
in their eyes, and murder in their hearts, they 
watched him buy two “hot dogs” and calmly stoop 
and hand one to “Shep.” 

“The little pig!” said Tubby, and he meant no 
insult to the camp collie. 

“I told you fellows to hold the canoes for Sonny, 
or there would be trouble,” recalled Wish sadly. 
^‘See, he’s ordering another for himself.” 

“You’d think he missed dinner and supper!” ex¬ 
ploded Shorty Howard. 

“It’s a wonder he wouldn’t treat ‘Shep’ again.” 

“What’s the use. Legs!” explained Teddy. 
“There’s that old dog eating stuff he found under 


LITTLE PIG 


161 


the table, and Sonny knows it. See, he’s pointing 
out another piece to ‘Shep.’ ” 

“A dollar bill and almost a quarter left in his 
pocket! He treats that fat dog, who has an awful 
drag with Cookie! And yet that little groundhog 
lets his true friends starve 1” Wish Craig was 
apostrophizing “The Priests’ Pump,” that stood 
shadowy and unsympathetic beyond the boys. “Let’s 
have a drink, anyway.” 

“Let’s take it away from him,” suggested Tubby 
practically, when they learnt that even the pump 
was dry. “He owes you money, doesn’t he, Wish?” 

“Nope. I wish he did! It’s the other way 
around.” 

Hopelessly, almost forcibly, they turned their eyes 
away from the disagreeable sight of Sonny Socolow 
swelling the church funds. Hopelessly, almost forci¬ 
bly, they directed their steps across the rectory lawn 
to stand with their backs to the maddening sight of 
the brisk soft drink and ice cream business going on 
in the near-by tent, and to watch the couples on the 
dance floor. 

Here in their zero hour. Father McEntee came 
upon them. 

He listened and he cautioned: 

“Hang around a bit longer, till Sonny goes back 
to camp. He’s with Brother Christopher, and the 
Camp Director is leaving shortly.” 

Again, they attempted to watch the dancers. But 
their attention was distracted by hearing a shrill 
voice, that they were beginning to hate, shout across 
from the near-by tent. 

“Whoopee! This chocolate ice cream and orange 


162 


WHOOPEE! 


squash is better than the stuff we get at the Canteen.” 

None of the dance watchers deigned to notice the 
observation or the observer. 

“Hej, Wish! Look at old ‘Shep’ lap up this 
cream!” 

Tubby, despite his firm resolution, turned and saw 
the camp collie wrecking a good cone. 

A look of positive pain shot across his round, 
brown face as the dancing couples swept into his 
vision again. 

With a sigh of relief, the dry and hungry group 
welcomed the return of their Counselor, and to his 
first question, all’five replied: 

“He’s right over there behind you. I’ll tell him. 
Let me.” 

But it was Tubby Thompson who shouted: 

“Hey, you Benedict Arnold. The Camp Director 
is looking all over the place for you. It’s ’way past 
Baby’s bedtime. You better run.” 

With satisfied hearts, they watched Sonny leap 
into the camp auto, and they saw “Shep” trail out 
of the church grounds after its tail light. 

Then their vigil ended, for a Leonardtown altar 
boy sought them and said: 

“The priest wants you camp boys to come over 
and help strip the Fancy Table.” 

With a will, strengthened by a hope of a possible 
substantial reward, they toiled, carrying loads of 
articles from the Fancy Table into the storeroom 
of the Rectory. And when the stand was bare 
boards and torn debris, they heard the welcome in¬ 
vitation from the lips of their Chaplain: 

“Now you boys must be a bit hungry. See that 
box there with bags of peanuts! Take two bags 


LITTLE PIG 


163 


each, and then come over with me to the ‘Hot Dog’^ 
stand and give the young ladies there something to 
do.’’ 

“We only have three—” began Wish, the treas¬ 
urer. 

But all the same he followed his fellow volunteer 
stand wreckers to the tables. 

When it was absolutely time to return to camp. 
Wish Craig voiced a common opinion as he rose 
from the table with difficulty and, pushing aside 
several empty pop bottles and a sand dune of pea¬ 
nut shells, remarked: 

“Father, we want to contribute the Orphan’s Mite 
to the church funds.” He handed over the last 
three pennies. 

Then he confessed: 

“I’m not even able to bark any more! But won’t 
our little mascot be happy when he learns what his 
tainted wealth made him miss to-night 1” 

“It’ll break his heart,” confessed Legs. 

“Not Sonny’s heart,” said Teddy. 

“TNT couldn’t dent it,” denied Tubby. 

“ ‘His cot is right hand cot to mine.’ ” Elmo 
Ranier quoted his Kipling easily. 

“But all the same that little pig’s beauty sleep 
is going to be disturbed when we get back to ‘Swam- 
P00DI.E Inn’ this night.” 

This last prediction was verified, but not exactly 
as Shorty predicted. 

When the campers canoed back in the moonlight, 
they learnt to their dismay that Sonny Socolow was 
spending the night in “Mother Inn.” 

He blamed it all on over-exposure to the sun in 
the afternoon swim, but the practical Camp Mother, 


364 


WHOOPEE! 


who had reason to recognize an attack of indiges¬ 
tion, diagnosed the little sufferer’s case differently. 

Wish offered to return and get Father McEntee, 
but went to bed reassured when the Camp Director 
informed him: 

“For Sonny! That boy will live to bury most 
of his grown up grandchildren I” 


CHAPTER XV 


TERRAPIN AND SERAPHIM 

^ ^ A RE we still in America?” 

AX It was weary Wish Craig, paddling me¬ 
chanically, who flung back the question. The eight 
canoes and their loads of paddlers and packs had put 
oflP bravely in the glorious morning sunlight from 
Camp Colmnbus dock. Down the increasingly 
warmer miles of Breton Bay they had crept. After 
an hour, camp songs lost their invigorating charm; 
conversation lagged or grew more personal; jokes 
were as scarce as a cloud overhead. Paddling was 
an endurance test. 

The party had lunched and rested under a pine 
grove on Newtown Neck in sight of the broad spar¬ 
kling Potomac. Again spirits soared. 

Once out of the Bay, the Director had announced 
that they would go in the direction of the wind, and 
as that was blowing gently upstream, the flotilla 
headed toward Washington. And now with evening 
coming to meet them, the most desirable thing in all 
the world seemed to be a camp site and a real meal, 
the cozy flame of a camp fire, and a blanket under 
the lee of a tilted canoe. 

“Are we still in America?” 

It was tired Tubby Thompson, who repeated 
Wish’s question, from his place in the bottom of the 
165 


166 


WHOOPEE! 


canoe, as he gingerly examined a blister on the palm 
of his left hand and thought ruefully of his cooking 
duties that would claim him as soon as a landing 
was made. 

However, the realization that he would cook his 
own supper to his own taste, made him answer 
the question whimsically: 

“Whoopie! No, Wish. This is the Nile. Can’t 
you hear the bulrushes singing in the palms and see 
the cute little baby monkeys pitching down cocoa- 
nuts ?” 

‘^Are you talking about me, you big Baby Ele¬ 
phant?” wrathfully demanded Sonny Socolow from 
the next section of the canoe, where he lay resting 
as comfortably as possible on many cans of beans. 

Their Counselor, who was furnishing most of the 
motive power to the canoe, poured oil on the tired 
waters, by calling out: 

“The Director is signaling to turn ashore on the 
island ahead. Put your back into it. Wish, old 
man, and—” 

He broke off: 

“Sonny, if you jump up that way again, you’ll 
tip the canoe and if we lose our blankets out here in 
the Potomac, I see us sleeping under the cold canopy 
of Heaven to-night.” 

Tubby observed: 

“Sonny would be more worried if we lost the 
beans.” 

“Well, they’d sink, and that’s more than you can 
do, you bell-buoy. If I had your weight. Tubby, 
I’d—” 

“We know—you’d be normal. Lie still, you vest- 
pocket eel, can’t you?” 


TERRAPIN AND SERAPHIM 


167 


Sonny Socolow was trying to slip his khaki shirt 
off, revealing his lobster scarlet one-piece suit. 

As the canoeists were about to ground on the 
sandy strip of the island, amid the shrill babble of 
voices, Sonny leapt overboard up to his waist. 

Then he forgot his intentions of holding the canoe 
on an even keel, to indulge in a charming water 
dance. 

“What do you want to go and step on a safety 
razor blade for.?’^ 

Sonny paid no attention to Tubby’s cold conso¬ 
lation, but sat down on the shore line and, pointing 
his toe at high heaven, began earnestly to examine 
the oyster shell cut. 

“Look at Baby playing with its tootsies I” 

“You shut up, Tubby. You can’t see yours.” 

Teddy Thompson, with a tin of beans in one hand, 
came running down. 

“Come on. Scout Thompson, you’re cooking with 
me. Where’s that can-opener.? You had it after 
lunch time.” 

“I put it in the coffee pot under the pickles. It 
should be in Bernie Ball’s canoe. Find him.” 

Sonny Socolow forgot his cut to yell after the 
retreating form of Tubby. 

“Ah! You got to work! You got to do some 
work. Thought you were going to get out of it. 
Whoopee! I’m going swimming to get up an appe¬ 
tite.” 

Appeared Elmo Ranier with the command: 

“Slop dreaming out loud. Sonny. Indeed, you 
are not going swimming now. You’re with Wish 
and me, lugging the camp stuff up. The Director 
says so.” 


168 


WHOOPEE I 


Soon Sonny neglected to limp painfully, as he 
joined the line of barelegged ants, carrying the 
blankets and kit and extra grub to the spot where a 
Camp Columbus pennant, fluttering from a paddle, 
designated the chosen camp site. 

This was on the edge of a cedar clump where the 
larger campers were hauling and tilting, bottom 
to windward, the canoes. In this improvised lee 
the blankets were spread. 

When the work was done to the Counselor’s satis¬ 
faction, Wish and Sonny attempted to open negotia¬ 
tions with Cookie Tubby, busy over two fires. 

Somewhat bluntly ordered out of the airy kitchen, 
they joined the crowd in the warm waters of the 
Potomac, and at once were “it” in a hilarious game 
of “Shark Tag.” A water battle royal followed and 
these sports washed away the cruise’s weariness and 
the day’s dirt and left clean bronzed glistening skins, 
and, as Wish sang with one eye on the Thompson 
twins, 

—there's a hole in my tummy. 

Sir, I fear that it seems 
There’s nothing can plug it. 

Like a bucket of BEANS!'* 

Sympathetic voices caught up this bit of camp 
doggerel, that had won instant favor when it first 
saw the light at the last entertainment. 

The clear soprano notes of bathers, many of whom 
were white-collared choir boys in the winter months, 
drowned out the cry that was coming from the cook 
fires. 

Finally, Tubby, sweating and smoky, came run- 


TERRAPIN AND SERAPHIM 


169 


ning down to the water’s edge and he yelled in exas¬ 
peration : 

“Come and get it, you bathing larks, or—” 

He was left far behind in the mad scamper of sun¬ 
burnt choristers, who mobilized with plate and fork. 

These passed in single file before the steaming 
bean pots, the boiled eggs, the frying bacon, the 
heaps of buttered toast. They forked pickles and 
they held out cups for hot coffee and cool milk. 
Each sugared his drink to his own taste. 

Then each squatted or lay at ease on the soft 
warm sand, after the dining fashion of the ancient 
Romans, till it was absolutely necessary to rise and 
seek replenishment. 

Then, while the cooks, woodchoppers, firetenders, 
and buyers of milk and eggs from the nearest farm¬ 
house, had their swim, other campers policed the 
place and rustled a pile of wood for the morning’s 
first meal. Yet others heaped up the evening’s camp 
fire, or, relieved from official duties, searched the 
woods for materials that would make the recollecton 
of a distant and soft camp cot less a painful memory 
during the sleeping hours. 

Legs Lanciano rounded up most of “Swampoodle 
Inn” and they put out with m-uch fishing tackle in 
three canoes. They paddled down till they were 
abreast of the light on the southern end of the island. 

Further down the river, low-lying Heron Island 
merged into the vivid emerald-clothed shore of 
Maryland that stretched miles down to Point Look¬ 
out and the invisible waters of Chesapeake Bay. 

Contented and in silence they fished, broken only 
by the occasional unconscious “Whoopee!” as boy 


170 


WHOOPEE! 


after boy pulled in a luckless ‘‘hard head” or a 
croaker. 

The peace of evening on the waters settled about 
them and across the broad-bosomed river. It grew 
darker and darker, and over on the dim Virginia 
shore, the Ragged Point Light began to show 
steadily. 

A lonesome feeling had given place to the calm of 
twilight. The black figures that flitted across the 
great camp fire’s light on the beach seemed to Wish, 
Legs, and Shorty in the farthest canoe to need an 
increase. 

There was a startling splash behind them. They 
twisted to look out into the vast river. They were 
in time to catch sight of the smooth side of a great 
fish as it curved and disappeared. 

That was enough. Believing discretion the bet¬ 
ter part of valor, they dropped lines—Shorty’s had 
a fish hooked—and grabbed paddles. With admir¬ 
able teamwork, they dug them furiously into the 
surface. 

Their blind panic communicated itself, better than 
words, to the other lonesome fishermen, and all three 
canoes tore across the darkening waters for the 
companionship of the shore and the welcome yellow 
flames. 

As they raced in, bow to bow, they found their 
voices. The camp fire crowd broke hastily to pour 
down to the water’s edge. 

With the last of his breath. Shorty shouted, as 
his canoe grounded: 

“Whales! I saw a whale of a one! He almost 
upset the boat! I heard him blow!” 

“Whales ! Whales!” echoed Lanciano and Sonny. 


TERRAPIN AND SERAPHIM 


171 


‘Whales in the PotomsPc! Well of all the only 
and original flat tires!” scoffed Red Cooper, who had 
been gazing out over the dim river. “I bet a can of 
beans there’s your whales now. Don’t you dumb¬ 
bells know a harmless porpoise yet.? Why, why, 
they’d eat out of your hands!” 

“They’ll never eat out of my hand,” said Wish 
decidedly. 

“Thank goodness, you didn’t lose the catch of fish,” 
said practical Tubby, examining the silvery string. 
“Maybe, you will still be too scared to eat any for 
breakfast. Sonny.” 

The Director strode into the midst of the campers: 
twenty eager to tell him everything. 

“You Stronghearts, get out of those damp bathing 
suits and warm up by the fire,” he ordered. “When 
boys see whales in the Potomac as far up as Breton 
Bay, it’s high time they were under lock and key for 
the night!” 

“Yeh, for the rest of their natural lives, too. 
Whales in the Potomac!” mocked Sonny, dancing 
delightedly. “Whales in the—” 

“Well, if you’re so happy, why did you try to beat 
our canoe ashore,?” Shorty demanded belligerently. 

“ ’Cause I thought you needed watching. Whales 
in the Potomac I Whoopee 1” 

Sheepishly the whale-sighters changed into dry 
camp uniforms and jerseys against the night air. 

Then they slunk into modest places near the 
crackling logs. 

They were just in time to hear the Director tell¬ 
ing local history. 

“Geographies call this island we are going to 
spend to-night and to-morrow on, Blackstone Island 


172 


WHOOPEE! 


now, but in those days the Maryland Pilgrims named 
it St. Clement’s. And here it was Leonard Calvert 
and his companions decided to come ashore, when 
they first sailed up this mighty river out there, which 
the Indians called ‘Cohonguroton’—‘The River of 
Swans.’ 

“It is not so difficult to repicture that scene of 
nearly three hundred years ago. ‘The Ark’ and her 
tiny fifty ton consort, ‘The Dove,’ lying at anchor 
under the lee of this island. Maybe, some of you 
sharp-eyed lads are looking on the sight of that 
historical anchorage. All the way across the fear¬ 
some Western Ocean, these—no matter what our 
racial extraction is—these American Catholic an¬ 
cestors of ours had prayed to the ‘Guardian Angels 
of Maryland’ to watch and guide them. And the 
Archangels, the Cherubim and Seraphim, must have 
silently been invoked again and again, through that 
long black night. They lay in a hostile river, that 
was a highway of the Red Men. Through the starry 
hours, those on board the two small vessels could 
see the signal fires the savages lit on the shores we 
call Maryland and Virginia to-day. For the 
Indians were passing up the word that ‘a canoe like 
an island had come with as many men as there were 
trees in the woods.’ Besides Red Men, a hostile 
colony of men of their own color lay to the south of 
them. They were miles inland from the ocean on a 
broad, unknown river. So it must have been an 
anxious vigil of Our Lady’s Annunciation they 



“Then the gray dawn came, veils of mist lifted 
from the still waters, and we can see the small boats 
putting off from the two pioneer vessels, crowded 


TERRAPIN AND SERAPHIM 


173 


with the long-haired Pilgrims, the sun gleaming on 
their half armor and steel helmets. Can’t you see 
them making their passage back and forth for the 
first landing 

“Is it so hard to see why the new colonists picked 
a site out here on an island for that first landing?” 

“Why didn’t they go on up to Washington?” 
asked Sonny innocently out of the shadows. 

When the roar died down, Tubby offered wither- 
ingly: 

“It’s from Baltimore, too! Shall I throw it into 
the fire. Brother?” 

“No,” objected Wish, “that green wood would 
not burn. It’d only make more smoke. Go on. 
Brother, please. I was seeing that landing then.” 

But the Director stopped to explain: 

“Sonny, this was in the seventeenth century, on 
the feast of the Annunciation. 

“Wish, do you happen to remember what date 
that was?” 

“Sir? March 25, 1634. I learnt that in Gon- 
zaga School.” 

“Too bad the Sister didn’t take time out to teach 
you to tell the porpoise from the whale, too,” 
whispered Teddy, arranging himself more comfort¬ 
ably across Craig’s feet. 

“Yes, that was the date, and there was no Wash¬ 
ington, even no Baltimore yet. The nearest town 
was a struggling little settlement called Jamestown, 
miles down this strange river and bay they had 
sailed. And that place was only twenty some odd 
years in existence. 

“When all were ashore. Father Andrew White, one 
of the Jesuit' priests with ‘The Ark,’ vested and 


174 


WHOOPEE! 


celebrated the First Mass somewhere here almost 
within sight of this camp fire.” 

“What was the name of the first altar boy.?^” asked 
Wish. “I hope it was Aloy—” 

“I am not aware history records his name,” said 
the Director. “But when you get back to Wash¬ 
ington, go up to Georgetown University and ask to 
see the Archivist. He’ll? very likely take you down 
to the room where the Maryland Archives are kept 
and let you spend the afternoon looking up his 
name, Wish.” 

“Thanks, Brother,” said. Wish, “but if I ever do, 
it will be a school-day afternoon that I go looking 
over those ark-things.” 

“There’s a Catholic legend,” continued the 
Director—“you boys very likely have heard it on one 
of Wish’s ‘school-day afternoons’ from your 
teachers. And the legend relates that wherever 
Mass has once been said, over that hallowed spot 
where God came down, a tall angel with folded wings 
stands sentry till the end of time. 

“So near-by a great Cherub or Seraph keeps 
watch. We don’t see him, but our Guardian Angels 
do. They are very likely chatting with him now.” 

“I wish my soul had ears. I’d learn something 
about 3 mu fellows, you bet!” observed W^ish, grin¬ 
ning broadly. 

“Give your body one half a chance and listen,” 
said Sonny. “Go on, please. Brother.” 

“Well, after the Holy Sacrifice was finished, that 
first Maryland congregation moved in procession 
under the ancestors of these trees that shield us to¬ 
night, to halt at a commanding spot. There a 
huge cross, hewn from a tree, was erected ‘as a 


TERRAPIN AND SERAPHIM 


175 


trophy to Christ, our Saviour.’ Those last few 
words are not mine, but are taken from Father 
White’s account of this ancient day. And the 
Apostle of Maryland continues, ‘Then humbly 
kneeling, we recited with deep emotion the Litany of 
the Holy Cross.’ 

“Long since, the weather has swept away that 
pioneer cross which commemorated the First Mass 
in the Catholic Colony, but its memory remains, for 
from that day to this has God come down upon 
Maryland altars, bringing with Him His blessings on 
all good folks, even sleepy ones, like our friends from 
the -Monumental City.’ ” 

Sonny Socolow indignantly protested he was not 
a bit, but the. Director ignored his protestations by 
rising and saying: 

“Let each of us add a prayer, a tiny prayer, to 
the great invisible Cherubim and Seraphim, the 
‘Guardian Angels of Maryland,’ to light, to guard, 
to rule, and guide each of us to-night and all nights.” 

The camp-fire circle broke up. And, later, 
Sonny rolled up in his blanket alongside Wish under 
the lee of a tilted canoe, muttered piously, though 
inaccurately: 

“ ’Night. May the Terrapin and Seraphim of 
Maryland watch us!” 


CHAPTER XVI 


A RESCUE EN ROUTE 

‘‘^mOOPEE! Isn’t she a little beauty!” 

V V Shorty Howard’s admiration got the 
better of him. 

The boys halted in their game of Water Baseball 
to gaze in admiration at the small cabin cruiser 
that had cut in close to Blackstone Island. Her 
trim lines, white sides and gleaming brass made her a 
pretty marine study against the glowing green shore 
line of St. Mary’s County. 

“See! She’s even got the wires for a wireless to 
catch the baseball scores!” admired Teddy, standing 
by the floating second base. “Some clothes-line!” 

“Just listen to those engines purring like con¬ 
tented pussy cats !” offered his twin. “I wish she 
was towing our canoes back to camp to-day.” 

“I’ve seen her before,” Legs began. “She’s—” 

“Sure!” broke in Wish, who was “on base” and 
kept one hand “on first” for prudence’ sake, “she’s 
been lying off Leonardtown Wharf. That’s the one 
we motored around last Sunday evening. Remember, 
the people were ashore, except an ugly white bull 
pup with a black smudge around his left eye, and 
he followed us suspiciously around the deck, when 
the ‘Santa Maria’ circled, just daring us to attempt 
to come aboard his yacht. 

“Remember, there was not a sound out of the pup 
till Sonny began swearing at him in cat talk.” 

176 


A RESCUE EN ROUTE 


177 


Th« trim cruiser swung in closer and cut across 
what was “the outfield.” The watchers in the water 
saw a gray-haired gentleman at the wheel and a small 
girl in a blue bathing suit sitting in a wicker deck 
chair on the tiny after-deck. A white bull pup stood 
at her feet, and one black eye was cocked suspi¬ 
ciously at the boys. 

Wish waved a sun-browned hand and then he 
blushed furiously when the little girl waved back. 

Across the water came her clear voice: 

“Hello, Camp Columbus. Who’s ahead, Wish?” 

The cruiser swept by and eagle-eyed Sonny spelt 
out her name: 

“ ‘The Merry Maiden of Washington, D. C.’ 
Was she the one you were waving to, Wishi^’ 

“I don’t know that female,” denied Wish. “Never 
saw her before. I just do that to be sociable. It 
was you, Sonny, she was looking at all the time. 
She must have taken your suit for a harbor buoy.” 

“She did not, you cake-eat—” 

Wish, forgetting entirely he was “on base” leapt 
through the air like a discharged torpedo. He 
caught the lobster scarlet one-piece suit and the one 
button flew off. 

Sonny, after the manner of a startled minnow, 
shot to one side and then swam furiously away. 

Legs Lanciano with the ball splashed over from the 
box to tag the base runner out, but Wish regained 
the bag by a split second. 

Sonny Socolow turned on his back to yell: 

“O! What I know about you! Cake-eater! 
Cake-eater!” 

Then giving a perfect imitation of a girl’s voice, 
he mimicked: 


178 


WHOOPEE! 


“Hello, Camp Columbus. Hello, camp boy. 
Who’s ahead. Wish—dear!” 

Prudently he swam farther out into “right field,” 
.while Wish with difficulty kept his base and eyed 
the grinning Legs, who held the ball ready to tag 
him out. 

Finally, on the assurance that the base runner 
would not “ruin” him. Sonny with one browned 
shoulder exposed, returned to his duties at first base, 
and the game resumed. 

Five minutes later. Sonny swimming furiously 
after a muffed fly, forgot game, ball, “ ’n every¬ 
thing.” 

His shrieks brought the players racing across 
the water diamond to his assistance. 

Red Cooper reached him first and heard him yell¬ 
ing: 

“I’m on fire! I’m on fire! Put it out! Some 
thing! Something!” 

“You little Chief Dumb Bell, that’s only a nettle 
you swam into.” 

And Red removed the remains of the gray jelly- 
like trailer that had draped itself like a ribbon of 
honor across Sonny’s breast. 

But one nettle meant other nettles drifting like 
floating mines about the water diamond, and that 
game of Water Baseball was adjourned “on account 
of wet grounds,” as Wish said. 

Within an hour it was time for the start back 
to camp. With lightened canoes, Blackstone Island 
was left astern and the long paddle down the Po¬ 
tomac and up Breton Bay began. 

Tide and wind helped them. The sun was at their 
backs and far ahead the wooded bluffs and the sandy 


A RESCUE EN ROUTE 


179 


beaches curved and merged as they crept up the bay. 

After the fleet breasted the red Residence on New* 
town Neck, it was a green-ringed bay again, and 
ahead the narrow spit on which stood Abell’s Wharf 
grew nearer and nearer. 

Sonny and Wish broke the monotony, when it was 
the Counselor’s and Tubby’s turn to paddle, by 
watching each side the canoe to learn who could 
see the most crabs, scurrying in their side fashion 
out of the way of the steady plunge of the paddles. 

At Abell’s Wharf, the site of many a camp oyster 
scald, the last of the grub disappeared, a new two 
took up the paddling, and the final lap began, with 
the jungle-clad cliff on which stood Camp Columbus, 
a visible haven of rest dead ahead. 

Brother Nicholas held his three canoeists till the 
rest had resumed their cruise. Then retrieving a 
forgotten jersey and two baseball gloves, he gave the 
order to stand after the fleet. 

Quarter of a mile beyond Abell’s, Wish paddling in 
the stem, heard a chug-chug behind him and look¬ 
ing aft was delighted to discover the trim cruiser of 
the morning rapidly overhauling the canoes. 

‘‘Hey, you fellows, here comes ‘The Merry 
Maiden.’ 

“Maybe, she’ll give us a hop, or, at least, a tow.” 
suggested Sonny hopefully. To him, canoe paddling 
had temporarily lost most of its attractiveness. 

“That’s it. Trying to duck your share of the 
work!” soothed Tubby from his comfortable place 
in the center of the canoe. 

“I never saw you sweating this cruise, you Baby 
Elephant!” Sonny began to reopen an old argu¬ 
ment. 


180 


WHOOPEE! 


“Well, I didn’t get stung by a lazy nettle, any¬ 
way.” 

“Maybe, they didn’t care to take a chance on 
you. But if I couldn’t open a can of beans with¬ 
out—” 

Further disclosures were lost in the roar of the 
exhaust as the little cruiser overhauled the last of 
the fleet of camp canoes. 

The same gray-haired gentleman was at the wheel 
in the pilot house and the same thirteen-year-old 
girl, obviously his daughter, stood alongside him. 
The same suspicious mug of the bull pup peered out 
of the pilot house doorway. 

The cruiser’s engines slowed down as she began 
to pass twenty feet to port of the canoe. The girl 
stooped and a phonograph on the deck began to be 
heard in the familiar wartime music of “Keep the 
Homefires Burning.” 

“Hello, Camp Columbus!” called tbe small girl. 

“Hello, Merry Maiden!” yelled Sonny politely, 
and then he blushed the shade of his bathing suit 
when he heard Wish give a half suppressed “Whoo¬ 
pee !” 

The real “Merry Maiden” drew ahead ten feet 
and Wish was turning the canoe to port to take her 
swell bow on, when he heard a startled cry from the 
lips of the Counselor. 

“Oh, fire! Look! The cruiser is on fire!” 
shrieked Sonny, standing up in his excitement and 
dropping his paddle overboard. 

Tubby with some presence of mind grabbed Sonny 
and brought him violently tumbling backward, while 
the Counselor was just able to rescue the paddle as 
it floated astern. 


A RESCUE EN ROUTE 


181 


Smoke had begun to pour out of the after-compan¬ 
ion of the “Merry Maiden,” as she drew ahead. 

The four in the canoe yelled in vain, and Wish, 
putting two fingers to his lips, emitted a shrill 
whistle that carried across the waters and caused the 
little girl, standing in the pilot house doorway to 
turn and wave pleasantly at the receding canoe. 

But the bull pup discovered something was wrong, 
for he began to bark furiously, and ran along the 
narrow side deck. They saw the little girl give a 
startled look at the plume of smoke and then cry 
something to her father at the wheel of the cruiser* 
They heard the engines shut off and the cruiser put 
hard over. 

As the boat swung broadside, they saw the gentle¬ 
man, without waiting to tear down a lifebelt from 
the strips over his head, grab the little girl and, 
with her in his arms, leap overboard. 

The Counselor did not need to urge Wish to put 
his back into it as he himself dug Sonny’s paddle 
into the water. The camp canoe, despite the 
hampering fact that both paddlers were in the 
stern of the craft, shot through the waves. 

“Keep low. Tubby. Keep still, Sonny. Don’t 
move,” ordered the Counselor. 

The two in the water came to the surface, and 
Wish with his quick eye saw that both of them were 
good swimmers. 

But his eyes were on the fleet of canoes ’way 
ahead that kept steadily on their course for the 
camp. 

Then his gaze swung back to the cruiser, cir¬ 
cling slowly. Out of her after-companion an in¬ 
creasing volume of smoke was pouring. Through 


182 


WHOOPEE! 


the galley window, Wish could see the ominous yellow 
of a leaping flame. 

As his canoe swept alongside the two in the water, 
Wish came to a sudden decision. 

Not thirty feet away lay the ‘‘Meuey Maiden,” 
floating broadside to the wind. 

Wish blessed himself and gave Our Lady’s image 
on his scapular medal a quick squeeze. 

Then he put his hand on the side of the canoe and 
flipped himself overboard as Sonny in the bow, was 
grasping the arm of the small girl. With sure 
strokes, he made rapidly for the burning cruiser. 

As he drew near the white side, a cloud of smoke 
enveloping him, set him coughing vigorously and he 
heard the frantic barkings of the pup. There came 
to his mind to invoke the aid of the Guardian Angels 
of Maryland. 

A puff of wind lifted the smoke and with a relieved 
sigh, he saw five feet away the low, dark, wood ladder 
hanging over the cruiser’s side. 

He reached it and drew himself up. It was the 
work of a moment to fall over the deck. 

Without waiting to recover lost breath, he 
stumbled to his feet and side-stepped along the 
narrow foot-wide deck till he came to the pilot house 
door. 

An angry growl succeeded the barkings. Then a 
white streak shot around the pilot house and made 
for Wish’s bare leg. 

Wish lifted that sun-browned limb of his and 
caught the bull pup as though he was a football. 

The pup’s growl changed in mid-air to a yelp. 
He fell back, over the low deck. He clawed 


A RESCUE EN ROUTE 


183 


frantically and then slipped backward, still clawing* 
wildly, into the waters of Breton Bay. 

With a grin. Wish ducked into the pilot house 
and worked desperately to wrench the long cylinder 
of a fire extinguisher from the wall. It came away 
unexpectedly and in falling swiped Wish painfully 
on the cheek. But he caught the extinguisher, 
hugging it to his stomach as though he was catch¬ 
ing a forward pass. 

He saw the smoke trailing up under the door at 
the other end of the forward cabin. 

The tipped extinguisher was begining to sputter 
like a Roman candle. A trapped feeling came over 
Wish as he stepped over the platform of the pilot 
house into the cabin, but again a prayer to the 
Guardian Angels gave him strength. 

He wrenched open the door that led to the galley. 

Smoke rolled out to choke him and in the midst of 
the smoke, he saw flames leaping up from the small 
galley stove. 

Ducking as low as possible he played the fluid 
on the flames and kept it there, while white steam 
hissed up. 

The flame went out and more smoke and sickly 
yellow fumes choked him. Then, stumbling and 
coughing, he managed to regain the blessed fresh air 
that poured in the open pilot house door. 

Here it was, lying seasick, with his head hanging 
over the low deck and one limp hand almost touch¬ 
ing the white head of the bull pup, who was strug¬ 
gling futilely to paw himself up the smooth side of 
the cruiser, that the Counselor found Wish. 

When Wish was able to register impressions again. 


184 


WHOOPEE! 


lie discovered himself resting on a berth mattress on 
the after-deck. A faint pungent smell was in the 
air and his head was resting in his Counselor’s lap. 

Wish looked up at the striped awning overhead 
and then at the excited fleet of canoes that clustered 
about the “Merry Maiden.” 

A very damp gentleman in clinging clothes was 
saying to Brother Nicholas: 

“Craig is his name, is it.'^ And from Washington, 
too! Well, he’s cool clean through. I must con¬ 
fess I forgot the extinguisher at my back in my first 
fear for Dorothy. When I saw the smoke pouring 
aft I thought the gasoline tank had gone up. All 
the damage is confined to the galley, thank good¬ 
ness ! But it might have been a tragedy.” 

He saw Wish was listening in, so the gentleman 
addressed him. 

“Son, you did a heady thing. You, and this 
little child who pulled Dorothy into the canoe so 
valiantly.” 

Wish twisted and discovered Sonny Socolow in his 
lobster scarlet suit beginning to turn a brick red 
under his tan. 

The Camp Director, who had been far in the lead 
of the fleet, paddled alongside. Many eager voices 
gave him a complete and inaccurate account of 
everything. When he found the campers’ services 
were no longer needed, he started to give orders to 
resume paddling, but Mr. Gaze, of the “Merry 
Maiden,” made a better offer. 

“Brother, your boys must be tired. Let them 
string out, canal-boat style, and I’ll tow them into 
your camp dock in a jiffy.” 


A RESCUE EN ROUTE 


185 


“Whoopees!” met this popular offer and in no 
time the eight canoes made a long cluster of sing¬ 
ing campers. 

Sonny remained on board the “Merry Maid¬ 
en” with Wish, who still found it desirable to lie 
at ease on the birth mattress. Contentedly they 
watched the tail of canoes straighten out and swing 
slowly from side to side as the cruiser picked up 
speed. 

Dorothy returned in a clean, dry, pink dress and 
she carried a huge box of welcome fudge. 

Wish cried out: 

“WTiy, now I know where I saw you before. You 
were the ‘Hot Dog Lady’ who served us camp boys, 
that night at the Leonardtown Church Festival.” 

“Didn’t you remember that before.^” she asked. 
“Why, I recognized you as soon as I saw you play¬ 
ing baseball in the water this morning. 

“But ‘Hot Dog Lady’! What a horrid title to 
give anybody! If my brother Frank heard you call 
me that, he’d call me it always!” 

Maliciously Sonny explained: 

“He means you’re sweet enough to eat.” 

Wish started to deny this assertion, then thou^t 
better of it. 

Dorothy hastened to amend matters by saying: 

“I am going to offer the fudge first to this Httle 
boy. Wish, because you only put the old fire out, 
but he pulled me into his canoe.” 

Sonny in his embarrassment took a handful of 
fudge. 

Then to change the subject, he exclaimed: 

“Thanks, little girl, but. Whoopee! Wait till 


186 


WHOOPEE! 


Wish sees that dinky eye he’s going to wear back to 
Washington day after to-morrow, when the camp 
closes! O Mother’s Youngest Child!” 

Suddenly a dull pain around his left eye reminded 
Wish Craig of the clip the extinguisher had given 
him in coming away from the pilot house wall. Vi¬ 
sions of another “peacock’s tail” replacing the last 
traces of the one he had received the night the Ford 
skidded, drove all thoughts of fudge out of his mind. 

He struggled to rise, but Dorothy commanded: 

“Wish, you stay right where you are. The 
Brother said so. I have a mirror in the after¬ 
cabin. 

“Little boy,” she smiled at Sonny, and Wish 
treasured the remark for future use, “it’s hanging 
over the berth.” 

Sonny stumbled down the companion in ready 
obedience, and called up: 

“Where did you say it was, Dorothy ? Here’s an¬ 
other box of fudge.” 

Dorothy Gaze jumped up from the deck chair, 
exclaiming: 

“Trust a boy never to find the right thing!” 

She disappeared down the companion. 

Wish lay back wearily on the mattress and closed 
his eyes. He felt very tired, now that the excite¬ 
ment was over, and the possibility of another 
“shiner” took all the joy out of life. 

He heard Sonny laugh and say, “Only two pieces, 
then.” 

Then something wet and raspy was licking his left 
eye. Wish sat up and there was the bull pup. 
No growl was in its throat and on its ugly mug was 
almost a smile. Its crooked tail was trying to 


A RESCUE EN ROUTE 


187 


straighten itself out and its white eye and its black 
eye were gazing affectionately on Wish Craig. 

‘‘Oh!” exclaimed the little girl, coming out of the 
companion. “Look at ‘Shiner’! I do believe he 
wants to make friends with you, Wish.” 

“ ‘Shiner!’ ” cried Wish, looking in instant dis¬ 
gust at the white bull pup with the black-haired 
patch that disfigured its left optic. 

“ ‘Shiner!’ ” echoed Sonny Socolow, offering the 
mirror. “Take a squint. Wish, and see if you are 
not going to have a better one!” 

Wish looked long at the pup with the marked eye. 
Then he attempted to smile painfully. 

He gave it up and shook his head. 

“No, thanks. Sonny. I don’t need a mirror.” 

Then to the owner of the Perpetual Black Eye: 

“Come here, ‘Shiner.’ You and I ought to make 
a damaged good pair of pals.” 


CHAPTER XVII 


THE jElACE THAT WAS NEVEK WON 

* ^ I 3 LEASE take me in, Wish. It’s the last race 

JL of the season. Please do.” Sonny Socolow 
was begging in his most appealing manner. ‘‘Look, 
I don’t weigh anything and, honest, I can paddle 
like the deuce.” And Sonny ended up with a final 
melting, “PI—ease!” 

The Water Sports of the closing day in camp had 
been on for a noisy hour and the final event was the 
Canoe Paddling Race. 

“Shall we.?” Bronzed Wish Craig in blue tights 
and a glorified “shiner” turned to the other two sun- 
colored boys. Little Sonny waited open-mouthed 
for the fateful verdict. 

Shorty Howard shook his head negatively, but he 
replied in the affirmative: 

“Oh, sure I If we don’t, he’ll paddle his head off 
in some other fellow’s canoe.” 

Teddy Thompson winked at the small figure in 
the lobster scarlet one-piece suit. 

“Whoopee I” shrilled Sonny. Then, recognizing 
an opponent, he yelled derisively at huge Tubby, 
floating calmly below the boy-crowded dock: 

“Whoopee! We’re going to show you up again, 
you case of Ivory Soap!” 

Above the excited din came the voice of Brother 
Norbert, directing the Water Sports: 

188 


THE RACE THAT WAS NEVER WON 189 


“Last Event: Canoe Paddling Race. Ox)en to 
all classes. Three points to each boy in winning 
canoe.” 

Wish shrieked hasty commands at his three and 
they raced to the racks to stand two either side 
their chosen canoe. 

Again the Sports’ Director gave instructions. 

“Now try to listen for a moment. A little quiet 
there! The course is out to the motor boat. Then 
to the diving float. Then back to the end of the 
dock. Then in and rack your canoe. Any boy 
touching another canoe or stake automatically dis¬ 
qualifies his canoe. 

“Don’t touch those canoes till the pistol goes. 

“Get ready! Hands up!” 

The boy crews of the five canoes threw their arms 
over their heads, giving from the dock, the picture 
of a wholesale hold-up. 

The Director broke in: 

“What’s the matter, there. Wish CraigHave 
you rheumatism in your arms.^” 

Guiltily Sonny’s pipe-stem arms rose two inches 
higher. 

“No, sir. Brother.” Wish grinned hideously back 
of the colorful shadow that darkened the left side 
of his face. 

“That’s better. Keep them aloft now! 

“Ready everybody!” 

Again the Director counted to learn if forty hands 
were in the air. 

“Set!” 

The pistol cracked and the wholesale hold-up 
tableau broke into violent action. 

Five canoes turned, were slid off the racks into 


190 


WHOOPEE! 


the water, and the crews fell on board with great 
splashes. As the only paddles allowed in this race 
were the two nature provided, the boys knelt or 
crouched low and paddled desperately; now with the 
palm of the right hand; now, other side, with the left. 

Red Cooper’s canoe forged ahead, closely pursued 
by Wish Craig’s fellow side wheelers. The three 
others, due to a lack of steering, were already be¬ 
coming afoul of each other. 

Sonny, face down astride the bow, turned the 
wrong way to yell instructions. Wish’s frantic 
command to his canoe-mates was finished as he and 
they disappeared under water. 

The next canoe, captained by Legs Lanciano and 
mightily manned by Ranier, Bernie Ball and Tubby, 
passed alongside the four heads as they bobbed up. 

Tubby’s placid face broke into a grin of pure de¬ 
light and his palm came down with a backward push 
on the sleek-haired Sonny, sending him under again, 
sputtering his wrath. 

Too late. Sonny attempted to grab the fat arm 
that sunk him. When he came to the surface again 
Lanciano’s canoe was already overhauling Red 
Cooper’s. 

Sonny shrieked: 

“Foul! Foul! Disqualify him. Hey, Brother, 
how about Tubby’s foul?” 

But the director on the spring-board of the dock 
decided gravely: 

“You’re not a stake on the course. Sonny.” 

“Cut that "stuff and help us right this canoe!” 
ordered Wish, standing up to his breast in the water. 
“We’re not out of this race by anything! They may 


THE RACE THAT WAS NEVER WON 191 


all upset yet. Hope they do! ‘Don’t give up the 
ship!’ Come on, Sonny, stop talking! That’s all 
you do.” 

With the industry of beavers, the four lifted their 
upset canoe till the water drained out. Then they 
walked it back to shoaler water and piled in to the 
accompaniment of derisive yells from the bathing- 
suited mob on the pier. 

Almost out to the motor boat, the four other ca¬ 
noes of contestants were inextricably snarled. Red 
Cooper’s unsteerable canoe lay straight across the 
course, while Lanciano and Company were paddling 
unceasingly to steer their canoe around. Babe 
Cronk’s crowd were engaged in a heated argument 
with Fats, Doran’s paddlers, and half the disputants 
in the two canoes had almost forgotten to paddle. 

Feverishly, Wish and Shorty, Teddy and Sonny 
crept up, and the fickle campers, watching on the 
pier, swung violently to their encouragement. 

The four canoe loads of perspiring boys slowly 
rounded the motor boat. 

As Wish’s canoe approached this first stake, he 
took command: 

“Now listen, you fellows do what I say and we will 
leave those fellows behind by the diving float. Paddle 
as I say and we can steer right. Now listen! Pad¬ 
dle on the right everybody! On the right. Shorty, 
use your other paw! The one nearer Leonardtown, 
you dumb—. Now left, Teddy. That’s it» We’re 
walking up on them.” 

A moment later. Wish resumed: 

“Hey, Sonny, shut up and never mind Tubby’s 
foul. Paddle, can’t you!” 


192 


WHOOPEE! 


Sonny was opening a long range gun of words on 
Tubby in the stern of the canoe ahead. 

“Now, left, Shorty and Sonny. No; stay right, 
Teddy. Now we’re turning jira dandy! Now all on 
the right. All on the left.—Give your ears a chance. 
Sonny!—All on the right. Work! Work 1 Work! 
We’ve got their number. Shut up, Socolow, and 
fight Tubby afterward if you want to, but NOT 
NOW 1 Paddle. Work. Get into it!” 

Wish’s canoe was coming down, overhauling the 
four leading canoes. The noise from the dock must 
have broken the Potomac quiet, miles away. 

“Now, all together. Spurt! Left. Right. 
Left. Right.—Shut up, Sonny!—Left. Right.— 
or I’ll throw you out of this canoe.” 

Sonny in the bow was pausing to hurl at Tubby 
in the stern of the canoe they were passing, the 
heinous nature of the foul he had committed. 

Alongside, Fats Doran and his three were still 
arguing vuth Babe Oronk’s trio as they busily 
splashed their canoes, bow to bow, down toward the 
turn at the diving float. Three lengths ahead. Red 
Cooper and paddlers were negotiating the farthest 
turn. 

Wish’s canoe drew up with Lanciano’s, but at the 
turn Sonny resumed his tirade at Tubby. The lat¬ 
ter paddler smiled maddeningly as his canoe turned 
on the inside and splashed after Red Cooper’s 
leaders. 

The racers held these positions as all five canoes 
straightened for the long reach to the dock. Red’s 
crew were working automatically and drawing 
ahead to the encouraging cheers and cries from the 
dock, crowded with its absolutely wild partisans. 


THE RACE THAT WAS NEVER WON 193 


The race was Cooper’s, if— 

But out of the clear August sky came that “if.” 
Red himself dug his hand too deeply into the water. 
He lost his bedance and tipped the canoe. 

Wish saw the happy accident first, as he worked 
feverishly a canoe-length behind Lanciano’s galley 
slaves. 

Again he shrieked his orders: 

“Red’s out of it. Only old Legs’ crew is ahead 
of us. Come on. Wake up! You only think youi 
are tired. Paddle! Little old spurt, everybody. 
Dig! Left! Left! Right! Right! Left! Left!’^ 

His canoe leapt forward to the stern of the lead¬ 
ing canoe and in this position passed the upset canoe. 
Red Cooper and his three were swimming in the 
water and a new volcanic argument was in full 
eruption. 

“Come on! Step on the gas, Teddy! O Sonny,, 
shut your trap and paddle or I’ll crown you!” 

Tubby Thompson, perspiring as though he was in 
a steam room, was too played-out to reply to Son¬ 
ny’s more personal accusations. Wish, self-appointed 
coxswain, from his position in the stem saw Tubby, 
then Elmo, then breathless little Bernie Ball, then 
Lanciano in the rival bow come abreast, then drop 
out of his sight astern. He kept pouring a con¬ 
stant stream of encouragement, condemnation 
and threat over the glistening brown backs of his 
three. 

Finally, the stream turned to shrieks of triumph, 
as his canoe took the lead. 

But his cries were short-lived. 

Lanciano’s crew had a spurt left and with dismay 
Wish saw Legs, working his long arms like flails. 


194 


WHOOPEE! 


then Ball and Elmo and Tubby come creeping up, 
creeping up, steadily creeping up. 

Bow to bow the two leading canoes were paddled 
to the frenzied dock-head. Bow to bow they man¬ 
aged somehow to steer a right angle without foul¬ 
ing each other. And bow to bow, they splashed for 
the finish a hundred feet away. 

Even Sonny, passing over the site of Tubby’s al¬ 
leged foul, was too out of breath to recall it. 

Wish shrieked hoarsely when they were half the 
last distance in: 

^‘Get ready to^—jump out—when I say! Re¬ 
member—we got to—rack her—to win.” 

He dug frantically into the water and the canoe 
tore in. 

But so did the one alongside. 

■^‘Don’t quit yet—Teddy! Dig!” 

•'"‘Now!” 

Both canoes grounded within a tenth of a second 
each other. Two quartets of dripping canoeists 
spilt out and desperately lifted the bow of their 
canoes. They slid them, slipping and scrambling 
in the mud, across the wooded racks. 

Two canoes turned, dropped into position, and 
sixteen hands exploded as one into their wholesale 
liold-up position. 

“Dead heat,” announced the Director of Water 
^Sports wisely and swiftly. 

The Paddling Canoe Race, “open to all classes,” 
was over. But it was not closed. 

Eight perspiring contestants hoarsely appealed to 
Brother Norbert and the whole sky for a redecision: 
^ decision that had an element of justice and truth 
in it, etc. 


THE RACE THAT WAS NEVER WON 195 


The last race of the camp season was over, but 
it was only beginning to be waged verbally. 

Particularly verbal was it between a stout boy, 
who lay on a dock gasping out his words, and a small 
violent figure in a—^lobster scarlet one-piece suit* 


CHAPTER XVIII 


THE C0LUM3US STATUE AFTER DARK 

P OSSIBLY, this storj will finish promptly, if 
Aloysius Craig is let ‘‘shut off the gas” himself. 
This is Wish speaking now: 

“I tell you, honest, that the first thing I did this 
morning was to open my eyes; the good one and the 
—the other. I expected to see the suitcases stored 
in the rafters of ‘Swampoodle Inn’ and to hear the 
‘Get up’ gong down ‘Columbus Avenue,’ or the usual 
sounds of Tubby and Teddy Thompson arguing 
over Who’s Whose among their clothes. 

“Instead, there was the white ceiling with the 
plaster piece dropped out by the electric light, 
where I bounced a basket ball off it once-t. And the 
only sounds were the trolley noises of a Brookland 
car, speeding up North Capitol Street. 

“Then I heard some one calling up from the 
kitchen: ‘Aloysius, are you up yet? It’s time, if 
you are going to serve the seven-thirty, dearie.’ 
And I knew right well that was not the voice of my 
Counselor. 

“So I yelled down to Aunt Polly that I did not 
have to serve this week. And that’s a true fact, 
’cause when Father Poulton got a strong sunlight 
look at the left part of my face, where that extin¬ 
guisher swiped me the other day, he said right out. 


COLUMBUS STATUE AFTER DARK 197 


before I asked him even: ‘That’s a thing of beauty 
and a joy forever. But with all due respect to Art, 
Wish, you hear Mass outside the sanctuary rails for 
ten days at least.’ 

“So, you see, it was all right to take a late sleep, 
and I lay there and—Gee Whizzers \—it seemed ages 
since I came home with the camp fellows in the gray 
Tidewater Line bus, singing all the way from Leon- 
ardtown, and that was only the day before yester¬ 
day too! And an age since I left the Thompson 
twins and Sonny Socolow in Union Station, taking 
their train for Baltimore. 

“That pesky little Socolow was still arguing with 
Tubby about some foul, as he went through the 
gate. The ticket man had to holler at him twice-t, 
before he could punch Sonny’s ticket. It’s a wonder 
he didn’t punch sometliing else! 

“Then I got a whiff of the coffee down in the 
kitchen, and it was no use. My thoughts were too 
sad. I couldn’t take a late sleep any more. You 
know how it is the morning after an Altar Boys’ 
Picnic, when aU you think of is yesterday and you 
don’t want to know it’s to-day, and, very likely, 
school at nine a. m., and you haven’t a line of 
Homework done! And it’s raining too! 

“So I got up, anyway. And when I had to brush 
my hair, that look in the mirror woke me up good. 
I’ll tell you, it did. For some other colors, purple 
greenish and yellow violets, had come out around 
my eye. They made me look like a distant cousin 
of myself. You know, I didn’t look natural at all. 

“But I guessed right there and then. Auntie 
wouldn’t send me on any errands while it was still 
daylight. 


198 


WHOOPEE! 


“When I came down to breakfast, you’d think 
Aunt Polly had seen a mouse, when she looked at 
me. 

“There was a letter on my plate and it was ad¬ 
dressed to me too. It was from that Mr. Gaze, who 
owned the ‘Merry Maiden’ and he and Dorothy 
invited me to come out to his place at Chevy Chase. 
It was clear he was not going to ask me to sweep 
the snow off his sidewalk. But Aunt Polly said, just 
like Father Poulton, I was to write I could not go 
for ten days at least. 

“That’s what she calls ‘Craig pride.’ I don’t see 
where a black eye or two disgraces the family name, 
if you get them in a good cause. Gee Whizzers! 
If I am to play in the basement or on the back porch 
with the awning down, the rest of this summer vaca¬ 
tion is ruined! The’re two sides to doing a good 
turn. 

“Then, when I didn’t care for any more breakfast. 
Auntie sprung it. She said the whitewash was all 
mixed and the brush cleaned and softened and all 
I had to do was to whitewash one half the cellar, 
and I could do the other half to-morrow. She let 
‘Hike’ stay with me for company, though. 

“WeU, that job didn’t take me more than a couple 
of hours and as I had some whitewash left in the 
pail, I did part of Tuesday’s wall, too. 

“Did you ever notice how white whitewash splashes 
look when you have a good sunburn on.? But it 
all comes off under the shower. 

“After lunch, I thought I’d ’phone some of the 
fellows, ’cause Auntie said I could not go out on 
Eye Street with my ‘disgraceful face’—those are 
her words, not mine—before seven p. m. 


COLUMBUS STATUE AFTER DARK 199^ 


“ ‘Eye Street!’ Whoopee! I live on the right 
street all right, all right. 

“So I thought I’d phone Legs first. 

“Gee Whizzers! I wish I hadn’t! Because Mr. 
Lanciano said Legs—only he called him Tony—said 
Legs had gone on an errand to Hyattsville and 
when he got back he was to have a quick lunch and 
then go on another one to Alexandria, over m 
Virginia. 

“I tried Ranier’s, but his sister Genevieve an¬ 
swered right away that Elmo was mowing the lawn, 
and if my ear wasn’t damaged, too—Elmo’s tongue 
wasn’t, evidently, else how did that girl know about 
my ‘shiner.?’—I could hear him working. Could I? 
Sure enough, I listened and over the telephone came 
the disagreeable noise of a lawn-mower that was 
buzzing as busy as a ‘Bandit Bee.’ I’ll testify in 
the Juvenile Court that Elmo Ranier was working 
like he expected a paddling from his Dad unless he 
finished by supper time. 

“So that left only Shorty. And, honest, I wisK 
I hadn’t phoned to Howard’s at all. 

“Mrs. Howard said Charles could not be disturbed* 
That he had been up to Gonzaga College with Mr. 
Howard this morning to see the Prefect of Studies 
and that Charles had come home and of his own 
accord had decided to spend the next two days pre¬ 
paring his Algebra. She hoped my eye would sooa 
be well again, and was there any message of im¬ 
portance I cared to leave for Charles, 

“There wasn’t, but when I hung up that receiver, 
I knew something I didn’t know before. Shorty was 
conditioned in Algebra, too! He told us he was 
only under in Ancient History and Latin. 


200 


WHOOPEE! 


‘‘He may pass those conditions off, but I’ll bet 
you a million dollars against the ten cents I just 
remembered Tiny Quirk owes me, Shorty will be in 
f^rst High, repeating his year, when I start at 
Gonzaga College next month. I know him better 
than some people do! Poor old Shorty! 

“Algebra! Gee Whizzers! There are worse 
things than lawn-mowers and whitewash brushes. 
Yeh, and black eyes, too! 

“Then I didn’t know what to do with myself till 
it got dark. It was really time for an afternoon 
swim. But it was no use in the world asking Auntie 
could I go to the Tidal Basin. She would certainly 
use the words ‘Craig pride’ in saying no. I could 
just see those waves sparkling on Breton Bay and 
that empty diving float, kind of beckoning a fellow 
from the spring-board to come on out, and away 
off in the distance, the old black light in the channel 
off Buzzard’s Point, sort of—sort of— 

“Well I’m only human, so I went up and put on 
my blue one-piece and took another shower. The 
pain wasn’t so bad after that. But it still ached. 

“Then I thought of something useful and that was 
to thank the gentleman of 1600 Pennsylvania 
Avenue, who had made last month the very best 
month in my life. 

“Of course, I had written him some postals during 
Letter Writing Hour, and he had said twice-t to 
come and see him after the camp closed. But I 
knew Aunt Polly’s ‘Craig pride’ couldn’t see her 
nephew within miles of the White House for the next 
ten days at least. 

“So I got out some of Auntie’s best letter paper: 
the ones with the pink color and the smell, I gave 


COLUMBUS STATUE AFTER DARK 20! 


her last Christmas. But I hadn’t written more than 
‘Just a few lines to let you know I almost forgot 
about you till just now.’ Then I needed a dictionary 
the worst thing in the world. 

“I have one somewhere, but though I hunted 
through all my schoolbooks, I could not find even 
the covers of a dictionary. The only good it did 
was to make me have to wash the dust off my hands 
again. And I am not sure how you spell ‘gratitude’ 
yet, but I’m going to look it up when I find my 
dictionary. 

“Then I thought I’d risk phoning once more. I 
remembered that Mr. Nelson Stirling, who does the 
President’s shorthand and other odd jobs, had 
given me the White House private number that morn¬ 
ing—^just a month ago to-day, by the way—when 
we went shopping. You know they never put that 
telephone number in the Telephone Book, ’cause an 
army would be phoning the President every hour. 
And you needn’t worr 3 ^ I won’t tell you what it is. 

“I knew where I had left the scrap of paper on 
which I had written it down. And it was just where 
I had set it, under Our Lady’s statue on the shelf. 

“So after I washed my hands again, I called 
Central and in no time I was telling Mr. Stirling who 
I was, and I was back, and about the letter I wanted 
to write, and all the fun I had had. 

“He didn’t seem to have as much to do as Legs 
and Shorty. So I answered questions and it came 
out about my eye for ten days. Mr. Stirling was 
awfully sorry, but not about the ‘shiner.’ And then 
he said wait a sec. I held the wire, while I heard him 
stand up to speak to some man who must have just 
oome in the office. 


202 


WHOOPEE! 


“They were laughing. 

“Finally, Mr. Stirling put his mouth to the disk 
again and he said: ‘Wish, attention there. A 
gentleman desires to speak with you.’ 

“My heart started to play a drum solo on itself, 
or something like that. But I listened and I could 
hear somebody sitting in Mr. Stirling’s place and 
reaching for the phone. 

“Then came: ‘Wish? Which eye is it, you can’t 
take out of doors this beautiful afternoon, son?’ 

“I recognized that voice at once, and I did what 
you bet any American boy would do. I stood up 
straight to answer: 

“Good afternoon, Mr. President. It’s the one on 
the left, sir. And I want to come as you told me 
and thank you for all— 

“The President listened and then he said: 

“ ‘That’s most interesting and I’d like to hear 
more. You say you may go out after dark! Now, 
listen, son. I’m going for a stroll in the cool of the 
evening. Suppose about eight-thirty you happen 
to be where we met once before? Where you 
rescued my Panama from a watery grave? 

“Thank goodness, I didn’t need a dictionary and 
pink letter paper to answer that! 

“Whoopee! Will I be at the Columbus Statue 
after dark to-night? Will I? 

“And not only that, but I’m going to bring along 
the blue and white ‘Camp Columbus’ pennant I won 
for the best swan dive in my class and I’m going to 
present it to him, too. Maybe, he’ll hang it up in 
his office on that bare wall behind his desk under the 
picture of Abraham Lincoln. 

“Now that’s all, except supper, tiU it gets dark 


COLUMBUS STATUE AFTER DARK 203 


enough to take ‘Hike’ and this eye out for an airing. 

“Only, I’m wondering if Brother Christopher 
needs a Junior Counselor next season in camp.? Be¬ 
cause if he does—Whoopee! Whoopee! Who-o-o- 
p-ee!!! 


THE END 


Pkinted by BKNaiGEB New York. 



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ALTAR PRAYERS. Edition A: Eng¬ 
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German-English-Latin, net, $2.00. 
ANNOUNCEMENT BOOK. i2mo. 
net, $3.00. 

BAPTISMAL RITUAL. i2mo. »c/,$i.so. 
BENEDICENDA. ScHtJETE. net, $2.75. 
BURIAL RITUAL. Cloth, net, $2.50; 

sheepskin, net, $3.75. 

CASES OF CONSCIENCE. Slater, 
S.J. 2 vols. net, $6.00. 

CHRIST’S TEACHING CONCERNING 
DIVORCE. Gigot. net, ^$2.75. 
CLERGYMAN’S HANDBOOK OF LAW. 

Scanlon, net, $2.25. 

COMBINATION RECORD FOR SMALL 
PARISHES, net, $8.00. 
COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS. 
Berry, net, $3.50. 

COMPENDIUM SACR.E LITURGI^. 

Wapelhorst, O.F.M. net, TC3.00. 
ECCLESIASTICAL DICTIONARY. 

Thein. 4to, half mor. net, $6.50. 
GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE 
STUDY OF THE HOLY SCRIP¬ 
TURES. Gigot. net, 1I$4.oo. 
GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE 
STUDY OF THE HOLY SCRIP¬ 
TURES. Abridged edition. Gigot. net, 

1I$2.75. 

HOLY BIBLE, THE. Large tsrpe, handy 
size. Cloth, $1.50. 

HYMNS OF THE BREVIARY AND 
MISSAL, THE. Britt, O.S.B. net, 
$6.00. 

JESUS LIVING IN THE PRIEST- 
Millet, S.J.-Byrne. net, $3.25. 
LIBER STATUS ANIMARUM, Or 
Parish Census Book. Large edition, size 
14X10 inches. 100 Families, zoo pages, 
half leather, net, $7.00. 200 Families. 

400 pp. half leather, net, $8.00; Pocket 
Edition, net, $0.50. 

MANUAL OF HOMILETICS AND 
CATECHETICS. Schuech-Lheber- 
MANN. net, $2.25. 

MANUAL OF MORAL THEOLOGY. 

Slater. S.J. 2 vols. net, $8.00. 
MARRIAGE LEGISLATION IN THE 
NEW CODE. Ayrinhac, S.S. net, 
$2,50, 


MARRIAGE RITUAL. Cloth, gilt edges, 
net, $2.50; sheepskin, gilt edges, net, $3.73. 

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND MODERN 
HIGHER CRITICISM. Gigot. Paper. 
net, Hlo.is. 

MISSALE ROMANUM. Benziger 
Brothers’ Authorized Vatican Edition. 
Black or red Amer. morocco, gold edges, 
net, $15.00; red Amer. morocco, gold 
stamping and edges, net, $17.50; red, 
finest quality morocco, red under gold 
edges, net, $22.00. 

MORAL PRINCIPLES AND MED¬ 
ICAL PRACTICE. CoppENS, S.J., 
Spalding, S.J. net, $2.50. 

OUTLINES OF NEW TESTAMENT 
HISTORY. Gigot. net, 1I$2.7s. 

PASTORAL THEOLOGY. Stang. net, 

1I$2.2S. 

PENAL LEGISLATION IN THE NEW 
CODE OF CANON LAW. Ayrinhac, 
S.S. net, $3.00. 

PEW COLLECTION AND RECEIPT 
BOOK. Indexed. 11X8 inches, net, 
$3.00. 

PHILOSOPHIA MORALI, DE. Russo, 
S.J. Half leather, net, $2.75. 

PREPARATION FOR MARRIAGE. 
McHugh, O.P. net, $0.60. 

PRAXIS SYNODALIS. Manuale Sy¬ 
nod! Diocesans ac Provincialis Cele- 
brands, net, $1.00. 

QUESTIONS OF MORAL THEOLOGY. 
Slater, S.J. nei, $3.00. 

RECORD OF BAPTISMS. 200 pages, 
700 entries, net, $7.00; 400 pages, 1400 
entries, net, $9.00; 600 pages, 2100 
entries, net, $12.00. 

RECORD OF CONFIRMATIONS. 
net, $6.00. 

RECORD OF FIRST COMMUNIONS. 
net, $6.00, 

RECORD OF INTERMENTS. net, 
$6.00. 

RECORD OF MARRIAGES. 200 
pages, 700 entries, net, $7.00.; 400 pages, 
1400 entries, net, $9.00; 600 pages, 
2100 entries, net, $12.00. 

RITUALE COMPENDIOSUM. Cloth, 
net, $1.25; seal, net, $2.00. 

SHORT HISTORY OF MORAL THE¬ 
OLOGY, Slater, S.J. net, $0.75. 


5 


SPECIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE 
STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
Gigot. Part I. net, f$2.7S. Part II. 
net, 1 I$ 3 . 2 S. 

SPIRAGO’S METHOD OF CHRISTIAN 
DOCTRINE. Messmer. net, $2.50. 


TEXTUAL CONCORDANCE OF THE 
HOLY SCRIPTURES. Williams, 

WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE 
FOR SCIENCE. Brennan. net, 
$1.50. 


IV. SERMONS 


CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES. Bono- 
MELLi, D.D.-Byrne. 4 vols., net, $9.00. 
EIGHT-MINUTE SERMONS. De- 
MOUY. 2 vols., net. $4.00. 

HOMILIES ON THE COMMON OF 
SAINTS. Bonomelli-Byrne. 2 vols,, 
net, $4.50. 

HOMILIES ON THE EPISTLES AND 
GOSPELS. Bonomelli-Byrne. 4 vols. 
net, $9.00. 

MASTER’S WORD, THE, IN THE 
EPISTLES AND GOSPELS. Flynn. 

2 vols., net, $4.00. 

POPULAR SERMONS ON THE CAT¬ 
ECHISM. Bamberg-Thurston, S.J, 

3 vols., net, $8.50. 

SERMONS. Canon Sheehan, net, $3.00, 
SERMONS FOR CHILDREN’S MASSES. 

Frassinetti-Lings. net, $2.50. 
SERMONS FOR THE SUNDAYS 
AND CHIEF FESTIVALS OF THE 
ECCLESIASTICAL Y,EAR. Pott- 
GEISSER, S.J. 2 vols., net, $5.00. 


SERMONS ON OUR BLESSED LADY. 
Flynn, net, $2.50. 

SERMONS ON THE BLESSED SAC¬ 
RAMENT. Scheihser-Lasance. net, 
$2.50. 

SERMONS ON THE CHIEF CHRIS¬ 
TIAN VIRTUES. Hunolt-Wirth. net, 
$2.75. 

SERMONS ON THE DUTIES OF 
CHRISTIANS. Hunolt-Wirth. net, 
$2.75. 

SERMONS ON THE FOUR LAST 
THINGS. Hunolt-Wirth. net, $2.75. 

SERMONS ON THE SEVEN DEADLY 
SINS, Hunolt-Wirth. net, $2,75. 

SERMONS ON THE VIRTUE AND 
THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE. 
Hunolt-Wirth. net, $2.75. 

SERMONS ON THE MASS, THE SAC¬ 
RAMENTS AND THE SACRA- 
MENTALS. Flynn, net, $2.75. 


V. HISTORY. BIOGRAPHY. HAGIOLOGY. TRAVEL 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ST. IGNA¬ 
TIUS LOYOLA. O’Connor, S.J. net, 
$i- 75 . 

CAMILLUS DE LELLIS. By a Sister 
OF Mercy, net, $1.75. 

CHILD’S LIFE OF ST. JOAN OF 
ARC. Mannix. net, $1.50. 

GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF 
THE CATHOLIC SCHOOL SYS¬ 
TEM IN THE UNITED STATES. 
Burns, C.S.C. net, $2.50. 

HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC 

CHURCH, Brueck, 2 vols., net, 
$5.50. 

HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC 

CHURCH. Businger-Brennan. net, 
$ 3 -SO- 

HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC 

CHURCH. Businger-Brennan. net, 
%%o.7S. 

HISTORY OF THE PROTESTANT 
REFORMATION. Cobbett-Gas- 
QUET. net, $0.85, 

HISTORY OF THE MASS. O'Brien. 
net, $2.00. 

HOLINESS OF THE CHURCH IN THE 
NINETEENTH CENTURY. Kempf, 
S.J. net, $2. 75 - 

life OF ST. MARGARET MARY 
ALACOQUE Illustrated. Bougaud. 
net $2.75. 


LIFE OF CHRIST. Businger-Brennan, 
Illustrated. Half morocco, gilt edges, 
net, $15.00. 

LIFE OF CHRIST. Illustrated, Bus- 
inger-Mullett. net, $3.50. 

LIFE OF CHRIST. Cochem. net, $0.85. 

LIFE OF ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA. 
Genelli, S.J. net, $0.85. 

LIFE OF MADEMOISELLE LE 
GRAS, net, $0.85. 

LIFE OF POPE PIUS X. lUustrated. 
net, $3.50. 

LIFE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. 
Rohner. net, $0.85. 

LITTLE LIVES OF THE SAINTS FOR 
CHILDREN. Berthold. net, $0.75. 

LITTLE PICTORIAL LIVES OF THE 
SAINTS. With 400 illustrations, net, 
$2.00. 

LIVES OF THE SAINTS. Butler 
Paper, $0.25; cloth, net, $0.85. 

LOURDES. Clarke, S.J. net, $0.85. 

MARY THE QUEEN. By a Religious. 
net, $0.60. 

MIDDLE AGES, THE. Shahan. «,$3.oo. 

MILL TOWN PASTOR, A. Conroy, 
S.J. net, $1.75. 

NAMES THAT LWE IN CATHOLIC 
HEARTS. Sadlier. net, $0.85. 

OUR OWN ST. RITA. Corcoran, 
O.S.A. net, $1.50. 


6 


patron saints for catholic 

YOUTH. Mannix. Each life separately 
in attractive colored paper cover with 
illustration on front cover. Each, lo 
cents postpaid; per 25 copies, assorted, 
$ 1-751 per 100 copies, assorted, 
net, $6.75. Sold only in packages con¬ 
taining 5 copies of one title. 

For Boys: St. Joseph; St. Aloysius; St. 
Anthony; St. Bernard; St. Martin; 
St. Michael; St. Francis Xavier; St. 
Patrick; St. Charles; St. Philip. 

The above can be had bound in i vol¬ 
ume, cloth, net, $1.00. 

For Girls: St. Ann; St. Agnes; St. 
Teresa; St. Rose of Lima; St. Cecilia; 
St. Helena; St. Bridget; St. Catherine; 
St. Elizabeth; St. Margaret. 

The above can be had bound in i vol¬ 
ume, cloth, net, $1.00. 

PICTORIAL LIVES OF THE SAINTS. 
With nearly 400 illustrations and over 
600 pages, net, $5.00. 

POPULAR LIFE OF ST. TERESA. 

L’abb^ Joseph, net, $0.85. 
PRINCIPLES ORIGIN AND ESTAB- 
LISHMENT OF THE CATHOLIC 
SCHOOL SYSTEM IN THE UNITED 
STATES. Burns, C.S.C. net, $2.50. 
RAMBLES IN CATHOLIC LANDS. 
Barrett, O.S.B, Illustrated, net, $3.50. 


ROMA. Pagan Subterranean and Mod-' 
ern Rome in Word and Picture. By 
Rev. Albert Kuhn, O.S.B., D.D, 
Preface by Cardinal Gibbons. 617 
pages. 744 illustrations. 48 full-page 
inserts, 3 plans of Rome in colors, 

X12 inches. Red im. leather, gold 
side, net, $12.00 

ROMAN CURIA AS IT NOW EXISTS. 
Martin, S.J. net, $2.50. 

ST. ANTHONY. Ward. net,%o.?.$. 

ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI. Dubois, 
S.M. net, $0.85. 

ST. JOAN OF ARC. Lynch, S.J. Illus¬ 
trated. net, $2.75. 

ST. JOHN BERCHMANS. Dele- 
HAYE, S.J. -Semple, S.J. net, $1.50. 

SAINTS AND PLACES. By John 
Ayscough. Illustrated, net, $3.00. 

SHORT LIVES OF THE SAINTS. 
Donnelly, net, $0.90. 

STORY OF THE DIVINE CHILD. 
Told for Children. Lings, net, $0.60. 

STORY OF THE ACTS OF THE APOS¬ 
TLES. Lynch, S.J. Illustrated, net, 
$2.75. 

WOMEN OF CATHOLICITY. Sadlier. 
net, $0.85. 

WONDER STORY, THE. Taggart. 
Hlustrated. Board covers, net, $0.25; 
per too, $22.50. Also an edition in 
French and Polish at same price. 


VI. JUVENILES 


FATHER FINN’S BOOKS. 

Each, net, $1.00. 

ON THE RUN. 

BOBBY IN MOVIELAND. 

FACING DANGER. 

HIS LUCKIEST YEAR. A Sequel to 
“Lucky Bob.” 

LUCKY BOB. 

PERCY WYNN; OR, MAKING A 
BOY OF HIM, 

TOM PLAYFAIR; OR, MAKING A 
START 

CLAUDE’ LIGHTFOOT; OR, HOW 
THE PROBLEM WAS SOLVED. 
HARRY DEE; OR, WORKING IT 
i OUT. 

ETHELRED PRESTON; OR, THE 
ADVENTURES OF A NEWCOMER. 
THE BEST FOOT FORWARD; AND 
OTHER STORIES. 

“ BUT THY LOVE AND THY 
GRACE.” 

CUPID OF CAMPION. 

TH^YT FOOTBALL GAME, AND 
WHAT CAME OF IT. 

THE FAIRY OF THE SNOWS. 

THAT OFFICE BOY. 

HIS FIRST AND LAST APPEAR¬ 
ANCE. 

MOSTLY BOYS. SHORT STORIES. 

FATHER SPALDING’S BOOKS. 

Each, net, $1.00. 

SIGNALS FROM THE BAY TREE. 
HELD IN THE EVERGLADES. 

AT THE FOOT OF THE SANDHILLS. 
THE CAVE BY THE BEECH FORK. 


THE SHERIFF OF THE BEECH 
FORK. 

THE CAMP BY COPPER RIVER. 
THE RACE FOR COPPER ISLAND. 
THE MARKS OF THE BEAR CLAWS. 
THE OLD MILL ON THE WITH- 
ROSE. 

THE SUGAR CAMP AND AFTER 

ADVENTURE WITH THE APACHES. 

Ferry, net, $0.60. 

ALTHEA. Nirdlinger. net, $0.85. 

AS GOLD IN THE FURNACE. Copus, 
S.J. net, $1.25. 

AS TRUE AS GOLD. Manndc. net, 
$0.60. 

AT THE FOOT OF THE SANDHILLS. 

Spalding, S.J. net, $1.00. 

BELL FOUNDRY. Schaching, net, $0.60. 
BERKLEYS. THE. Wight, net, ^.60. 
BEST FOOT FORWARD, THE. Finn, 
S.J. net, $1.00. 

BETWEEN FRIENDS. Aumerle. net, 
$0.85. 

BISTOURI. Melandri. net, $0.60, 
BLISSYLVANIA POST-OFFICE. Tao- 

G.4RT. net, $0.60. 

BOBBY IN MOVIELAND. Finn, S.J. 
net, $1.00. 

BOB O’LINK. Waggaman. net, $0.60. 
BROWNIE AND I. Aumerle. net, $0.85, 
BUNT AND BILL. Mulholland. net, 
$0.60. 

“ BUT THY LOVE AND THY GRACE.” 

Finn, S.J. net, $1.00. 

BY BRANSCOME RIVER. Taggart. 
net, $0.60. 


7 


CAMP BY COPPER RIVER, Spalding, 
SJ. «e/, $1.00. 

CAPTAIN TED. Waggaman. $1.25. 

CAVE BY THE BEECH FORK. Spald¬ 
ing, S.J. net, $1.00. 

CHILDREN OF CUPA. Mannix. net, 
$0.60. 

CHILDREN OF THE LOG CABIN. 
Delamare. net, $0.85. 

CLARE LORAINE. “Lee.” net, $0.85. 

CLAUDE LIGHTFOOT. Finn, S.J. net, 
$1.00. 

COBRA ISLAND. Boyton, S.J. net, 
$i.iS. 

CUPA REVISITED. Mannix. net, $0.60. 

CUPID OF CAMPION. Finn, S.J. net, 
$1.00. 

DADDY DAN. Waggaman. net, $0.60. 

DEAR FRIENDS. Nirdlinger. »,$o.85. 

DIMPLING’S SUCCESS. Mulholland. 
net, $0.60. 

ETHELRED PRESTON. Finn, S.J. net, 
$1.00. 

EVERY-DAY GIRL, AN. Crowley, net, 
S0.60. 

FACING DANGER. Finn, S.J. net, 
$1.00. 

FAIRY OF THE SNOWS. Finn, S.J. 
net, $1.00. 

FINDING OF TONY. Waggaman. net, 
.25. 

FIVE BIRDS IN A NEST. Delamare. 
net, $0.85. 

FIVE O’CLOCK STORIES. By a Reli¬ 
gious. net, $0.85. 

FLOWER OF THE FLOCK. Egan, net, 
$1.25. 

FOR THE WHITE ROSE. Hinkson. 
net, $0.60. 

FRED’S LITTLE DAUGHTER. Smith. 
net, $0.60. 

FREDDY CARR’S ADVENTURES. 
Garrold, S.J. net, $0.85. 

FREDDY CARR AND HIS FRIENDS. 
Garrold, S.J. net, $0.85. 

GOLDEN LILY, THE. Hinkson. net, 
$0.60. 

GREAT CAPTAIN, THE. Hinkson. net, 
$0.60. 

HALDEMAN CHILDREN, THE. Man¬ 
nix. net, $0.60. 

HARMONY FLATS. Whitmire, net, 
$0.85. 

HArRY DEE. Finn, S.J. net, $1.00. 

HARRY RUSSELL. Copus, S.J. net, 
$ 1 . 2 $. 

HEIR OF DREAMS, AN. O’Malley. 
net, $0.60. 

HELD IN THE EVERGLADES. 
Spalding, S.J. net, $1.00. 

HIS FIRST AND LAST APPEARANCE. 
Finn, S.J. net, $1.00. 

HIS LUCKIEST YEAR. Finn. S.J. 
net, $1.00. 

HOSTAGE OF WAR, A. Bonesteel. 
net, $0.60. 

HOW THEY WORKED THEIR WAY. 
Egan, net, $0.85. 

IN QUEST OF Adventure, man¬ 
nix. net, $0.60. 

IN QUEST OF THE GOLDEN CHEST. 
Barton, net, $0.85. 


JACK. By a Religious, H.C.J. net^ 
$0.60. 

JACK-O’LANTERN. Waggama.n. net, 
$0.60. 

JACK HILDRETH ON THE NILE. 

Taggart, net, $0.85. 

JUNIORS OF ST. BEDE’S. Bryson. 
net, $0.85. 

JUVENILE ROUND TABLE. First 
Series. net, $0.85. 

JUVENILE ROUND TABLE. Second 
Series, net, $0.85. 

KLONDIKE PICNIC, A. Donnelly. 
net, $0.85. 

LEGENDS AND STORIES OF THE 
HOLY CHILD JESUS, Lutz, net, 
$0.85. 

LITTLE APOSTLE ON CRUTCHES. 

Delamare. net, $0.60. 

LITTLE GIRL FROM BACK EAST. 

Roberts, net, $0.60. 

LITTLE LADY OF THE HALL. Rye- 
man. net, $0.60. 

LITTLE MARSHALLS AT THE LAKE. 

Nixon-Roulet. net, $0.85. 

LITTLE MISSY. Waggaman. net, $0.60. 
LOYAL BLUE AND ROYAL SCAR¬ 
LET. Taggart, net, $1.25. 

LUCKY BOB. Finn, S.J. ne/,$i.oo. 
MADCAP SET AT ST. ANNE’S. Brd- 
nowe. net, $0.60. 

MAD KNIGHT, THE. Schaching. net, 
$.0.60. 

MAKING OF MORTLAKE. Copus, S.J. 
net, $1.21;. 

MAN FROM NOWHERE. Sadlier. 
net, $0.85. 

MARKS OF THE BEAR CLAWS. 

Spalding, S.J. net, $1.00. 

MARY TRACY’S FORTUNE. Sad¬ 
lier. net, $0.60. 

MILLY AVELING. Smith, net, $0.85. 
MIR ALDA. Johnson, net, $0.60. 
MORE FIVE O’CLOCK STORIES. 

By a Religious, net, $0. 85. 

MOSTLY BOYS, Finn, S.J. net, $1.00. 
MYSTERIOUS DOORWAY. Sadlier. 
net, $0.60. 

MYSTERY OF HORNBY HALL. 
Sadlier. net, $0.85. 

MYSTERY OF CLEVERLY. Barton. 
net, $0.85. 

NAN NOBODY. Waggam.an. net, $0.60. 
NED RIEDER. Wehs. net, $0.8.“;. 

NEW SCHOLAR AT ST. ANNE’S. 

Brunowe. net, $0.85. 

OLD CHARLMONT’S SEED-BED. 
Smith, net, $0.60. 

OLD MILL ON THE WITHROSE. 

Spalding, S.J. net, $1.00. 

ON THE OLD CAMPING GROUND. 

Mannix. net, $0.85. 

ON THE RUN. Finn, S. J. net, $1.00. 
PANCHO AND PANCHITA. Mannix. 
net, $0.60. 

PAULINE ARCHER Sadlier. net, $0.60. 
PERCY WYNN. Finn, S.J. net, $1.00. 
PERIL OF DIONYSIO. Mannix. net, 
$0.60. 

PETRONILLA. Donnelly, net, $0.85. 
PICKLE AND PEPPER. Dorsey, net 
$1.25. 


8 


PILGRIM FROM IRELAND. Carnot. 
* et , $0.60. 

PLAYWATER PLOT, THE. Wagga- 

MAN. net , $1.25. 

POLLY DAY’S ISLAND. Roberts, net , 

$ch8s. 

POVERINA. Buckenham. net , $0.85. 
QUEEN’S PAGE, THE. Hinkson. net , 

QUEEN’S PROMISE, THE. Wagga- 
man. net , $1.25. 

QUEST OF MARY SELWYN. Clem- 
entia. net , $1.50. 

RACE FOR COPPER ISLAND. Spaid- 
ing, S.J. net , $1.00. 

RECRUIT TOMMY COLLINS. Bone- 
steel. net , $0.60. 

ROMANCE OF THE SILVER SHOON. 

Bearne, S.J. net , $1.25. 

ST. CUTHBERT’S. Copus, S.J. net , 
$1.25. 

SANDY JOE. Waggaman. net , $1.25, 
SEA-GULL’S ROCK. Sandeau. net , 
I0.60. 

SEVEN LITTLE MARSHALLS. 

Nixon-Roulet. net , $0.60. 

SHADOWS LIFTED. Copus, S.J. net , 

SHERIFF OF THE BEECH FORK. 

Spalding, S.J. net , $1.00. 
SHIPMATES. Waggaman. net , $1.25. 
SIGNALS FROM THE BAY TREE. 

Spalding, S.J. net , $1.00. 

STRONG ARM OF AVALON. Wag¬ 
gaman. net , $1.25. 

SUGAR CAMP AND AFTER. Spald¬ 
ing, S.J. net , $1.00. 


SUMMER AT WOODVILLE. Sadlier. 
net , $0,60. 

TALES AND LEGENDS OF THE 
MIDDLE AGES, de Capella. net , 
$0.85. 

TALISMAN, THE. Sadlier. net , $0,85. 

TAMING OF POLLY. Dorsey, net , 

THAT FOOTBALL GAME. Finn, S.J. 
net , $1.00. 

THAT OFFICE BOY. Finn, S.J. net , 
$1.00. 

THREE GIRLS AND ESPECIALLY 
ONE. Taggart, net , $0.60. 

TOLD IN THE TWILIGHT. Salome. 
net , $0.8$. 

TOM LOSELY; BOY. Copus, S.J. net , 

TOM^PLAYFAIR. Finn. S.J. net , % i . oo . 

TOM’S LUCK-POT. Waggaman. net , 
$0.60. 

TOORALLADDY. Walsh, net , $0.60. 

TRANSPLANTING OF TESSIE. Wag¬ 
gaman. net , $1.2$. 

TREASURE OF NUGGET MOUN¬ 
TAIN. Taggart, net , $0.85. 

TWO LITTLE GIRLS. Mack, net , 
$0.60. 

UNCLE FRANK’S MARY. Clemen- 
TiA. net , $1.50. 

UPS AND DOWNS OF MARJORIE. 
Waggaman. net , $0.60. 

VIOLIN MAKER. Smith, net , $0.60. 

WINNETOU, THE APACHE KNIGHT. 
Taggart, net , $0.85. 

YOUNG COLOR GUARD. Bonesteel, 
net , $0.60. 


VII. NOVELS 


ISABEL C. CLARKE’S GREAT 
NOVELS. Each, net , $2.00. 
CARINA. 

AVERAGE CABINS. 

THE LIGHT ON THE LAGOON. 
THE POTTER’S HOUSE. 
TRESSIDER’S SISTER. 

URSULA FINCH. 

THE ELSTONES. 

EUNICE. 

LADY TRENT’S DAUGHTER. 
CHILDREN OF EVE. 

THE DEEP HEART. 

WHOSE NAME IS LEGION. 

FINE CLAY. 

PRISONERS’ YEARS. 

THE REST HOUSE. 

ONLY ANNE. 

THE SECRET OTADEL. 

BY THE BLUE RIVER. 

ALBERTA: ADVENTURESS. L’Er- 
MiTE. 8vo. net , $2.00. 

AVERAGE CABINS. Clarke. net ,% 2 . oo . 
BACK TO THE WORLD. Champol. 
net , $2.00. 

BARRIER, THE. Bazin, net , $1.65. 
BALLADS OF CHILDHOOD. Poems. 
Earls, S.J. net , 

BLACK BROTHERHOOD, THE. Gar- 
ROLD, S.J. net , $2.00. 

BOND AND FREE. Connor, net , $0.85. 


BUNNY’S HOUSE. Walker, net , $2.00. 
BY THE BLUE RIVER. Clarke. 
net , $2.00. 

CARINA. Clarke, net , $2.00. 
CARROLL DARE. Waggaman. n , $0.85. 
CIRCUS-RIDER’S DAUGHTER. 

Brackel. net , $0.85. 

CHILDREN OF EVE. Clarke. «,$2.oo. 
CONNOR D’ARCY’S STRUGGLES. 

Bertholds. net , $0.85. 

CORINNE’S VOW. Waggaman. net , 

DAUGHTER OF KINGS, A. Hinkson. 
net , $2.00. 

DEEP HEART, THE. Clarke, net . 
$2.00. 

DENYS THE DREAMER. Hinkson. 
net , $2.00. 

DION AND THE SIBYLS. Keon. net , 
$0.85. 

ELDER MISS AINSBOROUGH, THE. 

Taggart, net , $0.85. 

ELSTONES, THE. Clarke, net , $2.00. 
EUNICE. Clarke, net , $2.00. 
FABIOLA. Wiseman, net , $0.85. 
FABIOLA’S SISTERS. Clarke, n , $0.85. 
FATAL BEACON, THE. Brackel. 
net , $0.85. 

FAUSTULA. Ayscough. net , $2.00. 
FINE CLAY. Clarke, net , $2.00. 
FLAME OF THE FOREST. Bishop. 
net , $2.00. 

9 


FORGIVE AND FORGET. Lingen. 
nel, $0.85. 

GRAPES OF THORNS. Waggaman. 
net, $0.85. 

HEART OF A MAN. Maher. net,%2.oo. 
HEARTS OF GOLD. Edhor. net, $0.85. 
HEIRESS OF CRONENSTEIN. Hahn- 
Hahn. net, $0.85. 

HER BLIND FOLLY. Holt, nel, $0.85. 
HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. Hink- 
SON. net, $2.00. 

HER FATHER’S SHARE. Power, net, 
$0.85. 

HER JOURNEY’S END. Cooke, net, 
$0.85. 

IDOLS; or THE SECRET OF THE 
RUE CHAUSSE D’ANTIN. de Nav- 

ERY. net, $0.85. 

IN GOD’S GOOD TIME. Ross, net, 
$0.85. 

IN SPITE OF ALL. Stanieorth, net, 
$0.85. 

IN THE DAYS OF KING HAL. Tag¬ 
gart. net, $0.85. 

IVY HEDGE, THE. Egan, net, $2.00. 
KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS. 

Harrison, net, $0.85. 

LADY TRENT’S DAUGHTER. 
Clarke, net, $2.00. 

LIGHT OF HIS COUNTENANCE. 
Hart, net, $0.85. 

LIGHT ON THE LAGOON, THE. 
Clarke, net, $2.00. 

“LIKE UNTO A MERCHANT.” Gray. 
net, $2.00. 

LITTLE CARDINAL. Parr. «e/,$i.6s. 
LOVE OF BROTHERS. Hinkson. net, 
$2.00. 

MARCELLA GRACE. Mulholland. 
net, $0.85. 

MARIE OF THE HOUSE D’ANTERS. 

Earls, S.J. net, $2.00. 

MARIQUITA. Ayscough. net, $2.00. 
MELCHIOR OF BOSTON. Earls, S.J. 
net, $0.85. 

MIGHTY FRIEND, THE. L’Eriote. 
net, $2.00. 

MIRROR OF SHALOTT. Benson, net, 
$2.00. 

MISS ERIN. Franos. net, $0.85. 

MR. BILLY BUTTONS. Lecky. »,$i.6s. 
MONK’S PARDON, THE. de Navery. 
net, $0.85. 

MY LADY BEATRICE. Cooke, net. 

So S"* 

NOT A JUDGMENT. Keon. ««/, $1.65. 
ONLY ANNE. Clarke, net, $2.00. 
OTHER MISS LISLE. Martin. «,$o.8s. 
OUT OF BONDAGE. Holt, net, $0.85. 
OUTLAW OF CAMARGUE. de La- 
mothe. net, $0.85. 

PASSING SHADOWS. Yorke. net, 
$1.65. 

PERE MONNIER’S WARD. Lecky. 
net, $1.65. 

POTTER’S HOUSE, THE. Clarke. 
net, $2.00. 

PRISONERS’ YEARS. Clarke, net, 
% 2 . 00 . 

PRODIGAL’S DAUGHTER, THE, AND 
OTHER STORIES. Bugg. «g/, $1.50. 
PROPHET’S WIFE. Browne, net, $1.25. 


RED INN OF ST. LYPHAR. Saduek. 
net, $0.85. 

REST HOUSE, THE. Clarke, net, $2.00. 

ROSE OF THE WORLD. Martin, net, 

ROUND TABLE OF AMERICAN 
CATHOLIC NOVELISTS, net, $0 85. 

ROUND TABLE OF FRENCH CATH¬ 
OLIC NOVELISTS, nel, $0.85. 

ROUND TABLE OF GERMAN CATH¬ 
OLIC NOVELISTS, net, $0.85. 

ROUND TABLE OF IRISH AND ENG¬ 
LISH CATHOLIC NOVELISTS, net, 

ruby' cross, the. Wallace, net, 
$0.85. 

RULER OF THE KINGDOM. Keon. 
net, $1.65. 

SECRET CITADEL, THE. Clarke. 
net, $2.00. 

SECRET OF THE GREEN VASE. 
Cooke, net, $0.85. 

SHADOW OF EVERSLEIGH. Lans- 
downe. net, $0.85. 

SHIELD OF SILENCE. Henry-Ruf- 
FiN. net, $2.00. 

SO AS BY FIRE. Connor, net, $0.85. 

SON OF SIRO, THE. Cords, S.J. net, 
$2.00. 

STORY OF CECILIA, THE. Hinkson. 
net, $1.65. 

STUORE. Earls, S.J. net, $1.50. 

TEMPEST OF THE HEART. Gray. 
net, $0.85. 

TEST OF COURAGE. Ross, nel, $0.85. 

THAT MAN’S DAUGHTER. Ross. net. 
$0.85. 

THeIR CHOICE. Skinner, net, $0.85. 

THROUGH THE DESERT. Sienkie- 
wicz. tiet, $2.00. 

TIDEWAY, THE. Ayscough. net, $2.00. 

TRESSIDER’S SISTER. Clarke, net, 
$2.00. 

TRUE STORY OF MASTER GERARD. 
Sadlier. net, $1.65. 

TURN OF THE TIDE, THE. Gray. 
net, $0.85. 

UNBIDDEN GUEST, THE. Cooke. 
net, $0.85. 

UNDER THE CEDARS AND THE 
STARS. Canon Sheehan, net, $2.00. 

UNRAVELING OF A TANGLE, THE. 
Taggart, net, $1.25. 

UP IN ARDMUIRLAND. Barrett, 
O.S.B. net, $1.65. 

URSULA FINCH. Clarke, net, $2.00. 

VOCATION OF EDWARD CONWAY, 
THE. Egan, net, $1.65. 

WARGRAVE TRUST, THE. Reid, net, 
$1.65. 

WAR MOTHERS. Poems. Garesche, 
S.J. net, $0.60. 

WAY THAT LED BEYOND, THE. 
Harrison, net, $0.85. 

WEDDING BELLS OF GLENDA- 
LOUGH, THE. Earls, S.J. net, $2.00. 

WHEN LOVE IS STRONG. Keon 
net, $1.65. 

WHOSE NAME IS LEGION. Clarke. 
net, $2.00. 

WOMAN OF FORTUNE, A. Reid, net, 
$i.6s. 


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